So, I had my ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Evaluation today. I kept telling them every little thing I could think of to help them (I even told them how I have narrow ear canals and get wax buildup and how I have TMJ, but I think it was caused by being rear-ended several years ago…). I gave them the CD of the pictures of the MRI and CT Scans (as seen here.) The nurse put it into the computer, but when the otolaryngologist/ear-nose-throat doctor came in, he insisted on looking at me rather than going straight to the images. He said he didn’t want to cheat like that. The doctor squirted some stuff up my nose and took a look. He exclaimed that the right side was completely filled up. Finally, he went to the images on the CT Scan. He finally explained some of them to me. Most of them, I had kinda figured out, but there was one particular set that he enlightened me about how to read. It really showed how the floor of my eyeball is bowing down, and how the left side is straight and normal.
He explained what is causing this. Basically, because my sinus is completely filled up, it has created a vacuum that is sucking and sucking and causing the eye to be sucked in, and the bone to erode. He explained the surgery procedure that he’d have to do to fix it. He’d have to go in through my lower eyelid, open up the sinus, and reconstruct the floor of my eyeball with cartiladge from my nose. I asked if my nose will look different afterwards, and he said no.
He also said we should think about fixing the other side so I don’t start to have problems with it down the road. Preventative surgery or something, because he said why have surgery again if we can fix it now? I dunno.
Of course, he mentioned some risks – brain fluid leakage, eye injury, blindness, possibility of needing several surgeries to fix any mistakes (like, he overcorrects so my eyeball is too high and stuff like that)…. Scary stuff.
I asked what if I don’t do the surgery. He said it’s going to get worse and worse. I’d probably end up with double vision and my eye would just continue to sink, and the bone would continue to erode away. He also mentioned pain.
Oh yeah, another risk after surgery is numbness in my cheek because the nerve is right there.
He mentioned he was going to call Dr. Snyder to talk about my case. I reminded him that Dr. Snyder had dropped my insurance, so I wasn’t sure how that would work. He looked at me and was like “Yeah, that won’t work”. He then asked me who had been following me since Dr. Snyder dropped the insurance. I told him how I got the records, saw silent sinus syndrome mentioned, looked it up on the internet, and then asked Dr. Perez to refer me to an otolaryngologist, and he’s been the first actual doctor I’ve seen since then. I suggested he call Dr. Perez because Dr. Perez has been receiving all the records as we went along.
So, Clint & I, and some other people I’ve talked with suggested that because the person who says I need surgery is the person who is going to perform the surgery, I could use a second opinion to see if surgery is completely necessary, or if this guy is just “Selling his service”. My boss is going to give me the name of an ENT specialist that he’s used in the past, and I called Dr. Perez (but haven’t heard back yet) to find out what he thinks.
October 25, 2006 at 8:27 am
Geez, I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through all this! You seem to be keeping a level head about it, which is good. The idea of any surgery freaks me out (I’ve never had any), so I think it’s really good to get a second opinion…especially since he mentioned that so many risks were involved.
I think a second opinion, of a doctor who doesn’t even know Dr. Perez or the other doctor, would be a good call, too…that way you’ll know they aren’t conferring with each other, or whatever.
October 25, 2006 at 1:42 pm
That, and the experience you heard word-of-mouth that he allegedly performed three failed tongue surgeries on the same person, who ended up with nerve damage on their tongue (allegedly). And the fact that he patents his own incision tools is kinda weird. I imagine some crazy guy with custom-made tools learning new ways to cut people up, when in reality I think I would rather be surgically performed on by someone who uses traditiona methods.. and tools.
But hey, maybe he’s brilliant and is just pioneering better methods. I’d still rather not be a guinea pig for that.
October 25, 2006 at 3:15 pm
My other co-worker strongly recommends not getting sinus surgery. She said she’s worse off than before she had her surgery. Apparently, her problem was her sinuses were draining into her ears instead of down her throat and eroding her ears. So they had to reconstruct her cavities. She said they broke the sinus bones, took cartilage from her nose, and reconstructed the bones, and she was in a lot of pain. She also said she now gets really bad headaches when it’s cold or rains because of the pain in her nose.
She did show me the scars where they went behind/above her ears. They are pretty hidden, though because of her hair. She said they did open up her face, but it was through her nose, so she doesn’t have any noticable scars on her face.
October 26, 2006 at 7:11 am
I tried to leave a comment on here yesterday, but I think wordpress ate my words or something.
Anyway…wow. I agree that getting another opinion would be a good option…especially from a doctor who isn’t associated with this Specialist that you saw. This must suck!
October 26, 2006 at 8:37 am
Aww, I hate losing comments. A copy the text before I click submit a lot – out of paranoia. And often save blog drafts to Wordpad before submitting (Notepad kills the HTML).
Anyway, if there are possible negative effects… You gotta wonder if you might be better off waiting to see if things get worse or not. But I’m not truly qualified to make that decision.
October 31, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Whooops! I got some actual spam comments, so Clint told me how to go and delete them and fix it so I have to approve comments. Then I noticed there was a spam catcher that said it caught 45 spam thingies.. and one of them was the comment you tried to leave, Parthena!!!
Anyway, yeah, in addition to the second opinion, I’m getting a third opinion, and I’m also going to see an opthalmologist/ocular plastic surgeon to get a 2nd opinion about fixing the eye part of the problem.
Not to mention, I have a follow up appointment with the Retina group. Even though I didn’t have that flash anymore, I did have a retina scar, so they wanted to see me back to see if that’s getting better or worse or whatever.
Stupid appointments.