How Sleep Apnea Sufferers Can Benefit From Rhinoplasty

Chattanooga ear nose and throat

Suffering from sleep apnea can have a severe impact on quality of life, making it difficult to enjoy a family life and even potentially impacting on work. The disorder is becoming increasingly prevalent with as many as 18 million Americans thought to suffer from sleep apnea, accounting for roughly one in 15 Americans (6.62% of the population). Given the impact of sleep apnea on stamina, productivity and quality of life that is a huge number of sufferers battling with a condition that can at least be ameliorated.

For some sufferers the condition can be exacerbated by or even brought on by a deviated septum, a situation that causes one nasal cavity to be bigger than the other. While a deviated septum is often not the only cause of seep apnea, it certainly can play a role and addressing the deviated septum through rhinoplasty can ease sleep apnea symptoms. The average 2016 rhinoplasty cost was $5,046, according the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. While most consider rhinoplasty to be part of the more than 15.9 million minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures and surgeries conducted in the United States every year, the truth is that rhinoplasty can be a useful mitigator of sleep apnea symptoms in sufferers and therefore can have significant health benefits.

Given the important role your nose plays — consider, for example, that about 20,000 liters of air passes through it every day — ensuring that you can breathe and sleep easier is worth the rhinoplasty cost. Although our sense of smell decreases with age, the human nose comprises more than 12 million olfactory receptor cells, University of Washington researchers found, allowing us to differentiate between the smell of the ocean, our favorite meal and the unpleasant aromas associated with sewage treatment, for example. This ability to smell can be hampered by conditions such as a deviated septum, impacting on one of our senses and cutting down on the more than 10,000 different smells we can detect. As many as 1 trillion different odors can be picked up by the 400 types of scent receptors in our noses.

To determine whether a deviated septum is playing a role in sleep apnea and impacting on quality of life, a visit to an ear nose and throat specialist is needed. As much as one in 50 Americans have undiagnosed sleep apnea, accounting for 2% to 4% of the population. Those undiagnosed are four times as likely to suffer a stroke as those without sleep apnea and three times more at risk for heart disease if untreated. Rhinoplasty cost can then be offset against the potential health benefits of reduced obstruction of the nasal passages.

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