Deviated Septum/Bone Spur Surgery, Snoring and BiPap

After years of never acclimating to my BiPap, and not for lack of trying, I quit trying. 4 years later, this new ENT tells me that not only am I not breathing out of my right nostril, but I have a severely deviated septum with bone spurs and require surgery. I am told that this is probably the reason for my sleep apnea. I was 9 years old when I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out, but still snored. The gist of my sleep lab results have always shown about half central and half obstructive sleep apnea. Has anyone had similar results and had a septoplasty with sinus surgery and not needed a CPAP of BiPap afterwards? I have a wonderful husband who has acclimated himself with my window rattling "motorboat" snoring, so we still sleep in the same bed together, but as of late he has been a light sleeper and I have been waking him. I am looking for some information as well from anyone who has claustrophobia and had a hard time getting used to their machine. I can not stand anything on or around my face, makes me feel as if I can not breathe. I know ironic, right? I required oxygen with my machine and I still felt as if I could not breathe. Thank you in advance.

Hi - your ENT is a bit confused... you may have trouble breathing because of your septum, but apnea is about your throat closing up and not allowing air in, whether or not your nose is blocked.

What I do wonder is whether or not your bipap settings were therapeutic or too conservative - did you get a chance to play with them and see results of raising or lowering them?

Claustrophobia and nasal congestion are my problems also.
I use an Oracle 2 mask and get good therapy.

Its not easy to adjust to, but once done its great.

Take a look at my post with a link in my signature block to see if you think it might work for you.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

gypsyrose198129 wrote:After years of never acclimating to my BiPap, and not for lack of trying, I quit trying. 4 years later, this new ENT tells me that not only am I not breathing out of my right nostril, but I have a severely deviated septum with bone spurs and require surgery. I am told that this is probably the reason for my sleep apnea. I was 9 years old when I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out, but still snored. The gist of my sleep lab results have always shown about half central and half obstructive sleep apnea. Has anyone had similar results and had a septoplasty with sinus surgery and not needed a CPAP of BiPap afterwards? I have a wonderful husband who has acclimated himself with my window rattling "motorboat" snoring, so we still sleep in the same bed together, but as of late he has been a light sleeper and I have been waking him. I am looking for some information as well from anyone who has claustrophobia and had a hard time getting used to their machine. I can not stand anything on or around my face, makes me feel as if I can not breathe. I know ironic, right? I required oxygen with my machine and I still felt as if I could not breathe. Thank you in advance.

Hi gypsyrose,

FYI:

http://fauquierent.blogspot.com/2014/07 ... -help.html

I don't have a link but Dr. Steven Park, another ENT, has said that septoplasty cures sleep apnea in 10% of patients.

So obviously, the odds aren't good that having the surgery would do that for you. But if you're having trouble breathing through your right nostril, having the surgery might improve your ability to tolerate a mask although obviously, it isn't a guarantee.

I would try JDS's advice to look into an oracle mask. I would also follow Julie's advice to make sure your therapy is optimized. If after trying this strategy, you are still struggling or you simply feel right now that the surgery would lead to an improvement in quality of life issues for you right now, by all means, pursue having the procedure. Just don't expect it to cure your apnea.

Best of luck.

Not being able to breath thru your nose is in fact a problem and leads to many other problems. Having it fixed may not only relieve the snoring but enhance life during your awake hours tremendously.

gypsyrose198129 wrote:After years of never acclimating to my BiPap, and not for lack of trying, I quit trying. 4 years later, this new ENT tells me that not only am I not breathing out of my right nostril, but I have a severely deviated septum with bone spurs and require surgery. I am told that this is probably the reason for my sleep apnea. I was 9 years old when I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out, but still snored. The gist of my sleep lab results have always shown about half central and half obstructive sleep apnea. Has anyone had similar results and had a septoplasty with sinus surgery and not needed a CPAP of BiPap afterwards? I have a wonderful husband who has acclimated himself with my window rattling "motorboat" snoring, so we still sleep in the same bed together, but as of late he has been a light sleeper and I have been waking him. I am looking for some information as well from anyone who has claustrophobia and had a hard time getting used to their machine. I can not stand anything on or around my face, makes me feel as if I can not breathe. I know ironic, right? I required oxygen with my machine and I still felt as if I could not breathe. Thank you in advance.

Five years ago I was first diagnosed with osa 57 hypopneas I had septoplasty and tuberation (sp) . I must have been part of the 15% of the people who have this done that did not need cpap anymore. Six months ago osa came back and now am on cpap. The operation allows me to use nasal mask instead of full face mask as long as i can controll nasal congestion becasuse prior to that I was a mouth breather. . For me I am glad I had it done aside from the impact on my apnea, it was still worth it to help me breath easy....

Thank you so very much for taking the time to answer my questions and for passing on your knowledge. My BiPap was set to ramp up and down between 3 and 25 and I was supposed to set the oxygen at 4L. (I apologize that I am not remembering the volume units clearly.) The sleep doctor said at times I needed higher pressures and at times I needed lower pressures and the machine would know based on my breathing, or lack there of. The main reason I was wondering if my nasal issues could be one of the problems causing the sleep apnea is because the ENT said I am not really moving air out of the right side of my nose, even though I do not usually feel congested. He said there is narrowing of the passageways. Well, the doctor is supposed to call me later today to discuss setting up the surgery. It would be great if it helped enough so that I could either not need sleeping assistance via CPAP/BiPap or could only have to use the cannula rather than a full mask. I will up-date when I know more. I want to thank you all once again. This is a great resource!

hello Julie

per this excellent video and the accompanying text on Muller's manoeuvre , there are plausible explanations why impaired nasal breathing can contribute to the base of tongue being pulled back posteriorly. This phenomenon would be accentuated in REM sleep when the base of tongue structures are even more relaxed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4QwwuNkNJU