Diving after sinus surgery.

[Mik Carr]

Not diving at present due to problems with sinuses for the last 18 months. Also a deviated septum, but that's no news to anyone who knows me! :rolleyes:

I had an operation 3 weeks ago which is supposed to cure all that after about 6 weeks convalescence. Has anyone got any experience of diving after nasal surgery? Any advice on what sort of timescales would be involved? :confused:

Ta,
Mik.

[richard scarsbrook]

I had functional endoscopic sinus surgery in 1996 and dived about 6 weeks later without any problems. Then I had the same operation again in 2002 (for a recurrence of nasal polyps) and dived 4 weeks later. My dive log notes that my sinuses hurt and it took 5 minutes to descend to 25m on that dive. I didn't dive again for 6 weeks (due to it being the December/Xmas period and no dives/no vis/too cold, not for any medical reason). After that there were no problems. I've been pleased with the operation's results - I get far fewer sinus infections than I used to, and I can taste things much better.

Good luck with your recovery.

[Mik Carr]

Thanks, Richard. Looking forward to it!

[Mike Rowley]

Hi Mik

I had sinus surgery in about 1980 after having had chronic sinusitus since childhood. I have no idea what the surgen did since he point blank refused to explain anything to me however, I do know from the nurses that bone was removed. The operation was carried out under general anastetic and I was in hospital for a week in all.

I was told that I would not see full relief from sinusitus for up to 3 to 6 months and this proved to be correct. However, I was diving again within a couple of months and have never had any ill effects.

Cheers

Mike

Not diving at present due to problems with sinuses for the last 18 months. Also a deviated septum, but that's no news to anyone who knows me! :rolleyes:

I had an operation 3 weeks ago which is supposed to cure all that after about 6 weeks convalescence. Has anyone got any experience of diving after nasal surgery? Any advice on what sort of timescales would be involved? :confused:

Ta,
Mik.

[Mik Carr]

Thanks for the info Mike. I did get the full explanation from my surgeon, and believe me, you DON'T want to know what they did! Makes my eyes water just to think about it
Mik.

[Mike Rowley]

The eye watering bit I can remember, from when they took the dressings off!
There was a bloke in at the same time with piles and up to then I had been feeling sorry for him!
The good news is the opp worked brilliantly for me. Up to that point I had endured years of steadily increasing bouts of pain and never been able to breathe through my nose. Now completely cured.

Good luck with resuming diving.

Cheers

Mike:)

Thanks for the info Mike. I did get the full explanation from my surgeon, and believe me, you DON'T want to know what they did! Makes my eyes water just to think about it
Mik.

[Andy Wade]

The eye watering bit I can remember, from when they took the dressings off!
There was a bloke in at the same time with piles and up to then I had been feeling sorry for him!
The good news is the opp worked brilliantly for me. Up to that point I had endured years of steadily increasing bouts of pain and never been able to breathe through my nose. Now completely cured.

Good luck with resuming diving.

Cheers

Mike:)


I hope they operated on you before they did his piles.... :eek:
Or do they wash the scalpels between operations? :D

[Mike Rowley]

Too bloody right they did mate! Timing was of the essence!
Mike:)
I hope they operated on you before they did his piles.... :eek:
Or do they wash the scalpels between operations? :D

[Nick Bailey]

I had the septum in my nasal passages realigned in 1991, as I was having nose bleeds after most dives. Since then I have qualified as a BSAC Advanced instructor, and PADI inst. I have worked as an instructor commercially for a number of years all with no problems with my nose.

[khantozavri]

I wonder if this forum is still alive, as posts here are quite old.

Anyway, I had my sinuses operated 3 months ago, and first dive on last Saturday. I had terrible equalizing pain during the descent. It took me about 5-10 minutes to clear the ear, seemed that nothing worked, but I didn't give up. Finally, it slowly faded away (I think swallowing helped a lot and I've heard lots of air passing noises through my ear).

Going up was not that painful, but once I removed my mask I saw lots of mucus with blood in it. This was the first time that I've experienced this, and I'm wondering what this could be?

My ears were blocked for some times (just if water is stuck in them) and today, after three days, I still feel slight discomfort.

Do you think I should give a ring to my ENT, or should I try the dive again (which I planned for this weekend) and see how things will go?

[IainC]

Yes the forum is alive.

It looks like your sinuses were blocked - perhaps by residual swelling from the operation or perhaps the walls of the sinuses are still weak and need longer to recover. or maybe you just had a cold.

Most people on here (me included) are not doctors, so a doctor's advice would be best.. A diving medical refree would be able to give advice specific to diving after an operation.My advise - In any case- get it checked out by someone who knows what they are doing.

Iain.

[crewzenkathy]

I had sinus surgery about 10 years ago, with good results after about a year. I still have problems with sinusitis after flying. Two weeks ago, I did my PADI open water in the Bahamas, and I was able to equalize my ears, albeit somewhat slowly. I don't know whether this had anything to do with the altered anatomy, or just with my being new at this. After I flew home to the US, my ears continued to pop for a few days, but I felt OK otherwise. Now I have sinusitis again--could be the flying, could be the diving. Antibiotics don't work for me. What does work is nasal irrigation with a Neti pot filled with saline. My ear/nose/throat doctor gave me a prescription for BUDESONIDE, which is a steroid inhalation suspension normally used in nebulizers (for asthma). I empty one vial into the Neti pot, along with the warm saline, and I do this once a day until the symptoms clear up (usually pretty quickly). My ENT said that this seems to get the steroid higher up into the sinuses than do nasal sprays. Works for me. I pass this along because my internist never heard of this, but he seemed intrigued. Maybe this treatment is not that widely known.

[Scrubber 71]

I'm a scrub nurse and participate in lots of sinus surgeries (and I find that people outside of the medical profession really don't want to know too many details, so it's probably best that you don't know!), but after undergoing sinus surgery myself recently I've been given lots of conflicting advice. My ENT surgeon said that I would be ok to dive after 2 weeks and a local alleged dive medic was rather sketchy and agreed with me that 3 months was probably right. I do know that any wound can take up to 2 years to heal fully, so I'd recommend waiting 3 months and if there's any pain then DON'T push it, you'll only do more damage.

[SUNDODGER]

For what it's worth, here is my tuppence worth. Caveat:I AM NOT A DOCTOR!

Many, many moons ago I had TITS and INA and I have no idea what that means. Though I do remember the extreme pain when they pulled out the dressings! I do know that I had spectacular bloody bogies for years after!

But I can dive and fly etc. However, if I have a long break from diving, then I do occasionally get some sinus problems. I firmly believe that keeping the internals working and flexing by using pressure differential aka diving, seems to do the business for me.

So - keep on diving!!

[hilarry]

Hello,
Yes sir richard scarsbrook is right. you will face some problem early than everything is gonna be alright. i will take more information about it then i will tell you.

good luck!!