Nasal Polyps
Nasal Polyps
One of the worst aspects of having chronic allergies and the years of dealing with that is that many people can develop nasal polyps. Nasal polyps are growths inside your sinuses. They are not malignant nor can they become malignant but nasal polyps can drastically inhibit your ability to breath well, allow your sinuses to drain properly and in extreme cases, can cause a condition known as anosmia. This is where you lose your ability to smell anything. If for no other reason, losing your sense of smell would make almost anyone consider any treatment possible for their nasal polyps.
Nasal polyps
can be almost anywhere in your sinuses but usually come from the ethmoid sinuses which are up by the bridge of your nose. Sometimes nasal polyps are small and don’t cause too many problems but if not taken care of, they can grow to the point that surgery is needed to remove them.
Many people who find out they have nasal polyps are first told by their doctor or ENT, to start a regimine of sinus flushing or rinsing. This is done by using a neti pot that is filled with water that is ph neutral. The neti pot can flush mucous and nasal debri out of your nose. After this, many people also use a corticosteroid such as Nasacort, Astepro, or Flonase.
These drug sprays are used daily by spraying the mist into your nose where it directly affects the nasal polyps and can sometimes decrease them or inhibit further growth.
If these regimines fail to help your condition with the nasal polyps, the final solution is for an ENT to perform what is known as a polypectomy where the doctor will use a small device that is put up into the sinuses and removes the nasal polyps. The surgery is known as FESS or Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery. Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery is usually successful in the treatmen of nasal polyps but there are many people, this writer included, who have a chronic history of polyps and in fact, some doctors call them “nasal polyp factories”. It’s not known why some people who have nasal polyps keep getting them over and over regardless of surgeries but one thought is that there is some immune deficiency that causes the body to keep allowing them to grow.
As was mentioned earlier, one of the worst aspects of having severe nasal polyps is that since they are blocking your sinuses, they are also inhibiting or in some cases, destroying a persons sense of smell.
Since odors are detected through the olfactory nerve, if the airway leading to it is blocked, there is no way for odors or aromas to go up into the sinuses to be detected. Along with this, since most of your sense of taste actually comes from your ability to smell, this too is lost. Additionally, there is a risk factor involved. If you simply can’t smell, something burning on a stove can have disastrous results if not caught.
So as you can see, nasal polyps while not harmful in and of themselves, can cause tremendous issues in other aspects of living. Treatment for nasal polyps should always be aggressive.