Endoscopic DCR - my unbiased minimally whine based story

I hate blogs. they're annoying, it's just people talking about stuff you don't really care about , and them assuming that people actually care. The only time I really read blogs was to read up on DCR surgery which I was told I needed because disguistoid amounts of tears and thick weird stuff kept crapping out of my right eye constantly - it sucked.

So I started reading your blogs and horror stories. And they were all these graphic, shitty horror stories about how much DCR surgery sucked - and don't get DCR surgery and WAHH WAHH WAHHHH!!! this one girl detailed her vomit and mentioned she cried everyday and by the sounds of it was demoing bottle after bottle of perc's in her wake - whilst crying and vomiting , for a week? Yeah, for a week, or two. Or something.

So I thought I would write about my own damn surgery , because everything on line was just a bunch of people whining and complaining thinking for whatever reason that having their face cut open should have been a lot easier, right ? Yeah.

Okay here's my story.

Pre op:
My eye was pissing out tears and this gross thick mucus. Every so often a horribly headache would follow it. I went to my eye doctor and he tried to flush my tear duct with no luck. Referred to Opthomologist and he couldn't clear it either so he recommended surgery 3 weeks later. (PS the Opthomologist office is directly above WildWing which has excellent chicken wings, wowowow).  I said sure, anything is better than this. Then I made the mistake of reading all of your awful, whiny, terrible, complaining, negative reviews where you all try to talk each other out of having a beneficial treatment done that has a proven 90% success rate (yeah, makes sense right?) You have to realize out of the 10% failure rate, 90% of those people find the time to come online and yammer about their stupid face and cry. I honestly was concerned at first and then my girlfriend pointed out the above statistic. Anyway, fast forward 3 weeks later.

Day 1 - I get to the hospital and it is full of old people. smells like medicine and old people scent. The gift shop sucks. I wait for 30 mins and some giddy volunteer escorts me to the waiting area where I get checked in and stripped down. Some crusty nurse gets me all set up and my iv hooked up. I just lay there for 2 hours waiting for my turn to get brought in. I had requested to have a local anasthetic - according to studies people who have a local have a shorter recovery time and heal faster - and have less post operative pain - here is a link to some positive studies instead of incoherent crying and rambling from all the other blogs :

http://www.revophth.com/content/d/research_review/i/1313/c/25282/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12121367
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21629189

there are many more articles that tout the benefits of local anaesthesia in this procedure, though it seems horrible it's really not - and the risks are significantly lowered .

Anyway, SO I made sure to remind my nurses and doctor that I had asked for a local because the guy in the bed next to me who was brought back was PO'd because he was given a general even though he asked for a local. At this point I'm in a stretcher outside the OR and they get me to walk in and lay down, where I am prepped. The anasthesiologist starts asking me typical questions and then lets me know he's putting the drowsy stuff into my drip, I announce that I feel funky and that they can turn up the tunes if they'd like (they were listening to Black Sabbath, yay) Then I wake up coughing. I'm like whaaat. I honestly felt like I was having a good, deep sleep, and then woke up coughing and looked up and the doctor and nurses said the surgery was done. I apparently bled like a pig and started choking on my blood so they intubated me and gave me a general - which I didn't want because my stomach sucks and I puke even thinking about puking. Anyway, So my surgery took a bit longer because of this rare complication. I'm just a bleeder, I guess. My mother was quick to remind me about how much I bled when i had my tonsils out as a child. ANYWAY. So they ask me if I'm nauseas, I said yeah, even though I wasn't because I knew I would be and this was my chance at IV anti nauseants (nothing is worse than trying to eat int he recovery room when you want to yak) So they inject some kind of whatever into my IV and I get wheeled to recovery. I laid there and napped on and off for a while while my mom and sister took shifts hanging out. Finally the nurse brought some crackers and juice which I ate. She asked if I could stand up and walk but I was way too dizzy and needed a bit more time. I sat for about 15 more minutes until I was able to walk and was finally discharged. As per the care instructions I had an adult (my dad) stay with me the first night. Nothing eventful happened, I ate a whole bowl full of saltine crackers and a bunch of water and went to bed where I slept for a good 12 hours. Very little pain , due to me being doped up and taking a tylenol 3 before discharge.

After surgery when I got home :

Day 2:  woke up and took a tylenol 3 (codeine) which ended up constipating me. yay. I felt dizzy. watched a lot of tv and slept on and off all day. The constipation lasted the whole day and was annoying, though I ate regularly and had a normal appetite. Not much to any pain in the face area - pain medication wasn't needed after the am. Went to bed at night and proceeded to sleep 17 hours until 5pm the next day, wow.

Day 3: the worse I felt, all because of the anasthesia. Nausea, dizziness, fatigue and then the constipation and ended and turned in to diarrhea. So just to point out, the biggest torment and issues I have had are all related to the drugs given to me by the doctor and in the hospital, and quite honestly my face and nose are the least of my complaints. I ate regularly but my appetite was very low due to the dizziness and nausea. Eyeball and nose are fine. I have to point out that I have a bad digestive system, since birth apparently. Things have never been right down in the south mouth so whenever I get sick with anything - I have stomach issues. I sincerely doubt this is a commonality with all endoscopic DCR patients :P I got to sleep that night no problem. Some great sleeping going on over here.

end of day 3 picture

Day 4: Woke up and most of the dizziness had passed. Fatigue down, appettite back to normal and nausea very very minimal. Face is doing fine. Still very little pain. Only when I look up and left do I feel a bit of an ache and I can feel the stent stretching a bit - it's mildly annoying but not half as bad as mucus and tears constantly coming out of my face. Diarrhea is still there but not terrible. My biggest complaint is I feel like I have the worlds biggest booger in my nose and I can't pick it out. I'm not allowed to blow my nose or "pick the crust" out. Which sucks, because it's huge. I would make any grade school aged kid envious. I am pretty sure I can smell it every time i inhale too. it smells like.... boogers.  That's as far as I have gotten so far. I'll keep up to date if there are more complications, or what. But like I said all of my problems are related to the GA and the fact that my system does not deal well with those sorts of things. If you are in a similar predicament just keep that in mind - but all in all this makes the other horror stories online look like a walk in the park. I've also been lucky to have my family helping me while I go through this which is a huge help. I've totally realized that yes you DO NEED to take a few days , or a week off work or whatever just in case your recovery drags on like mine has been. But like the stats say, folks who go under the general are likely facing a longer recovery as I am discovering. I have my follow up in 9 days with the surgeon to see how I am progressing. I think it'll be good news? I haven't had any bleeding in 24 hours. No swelling that i can see and very little pain. I have a bruise around my eye that looks like I got punched, but it's no big deal.

Day 5: I slept in late because I could. Still no pain to really speak of, more like a minor irritation which would be the stent rubbing on my eye and occasionally a dull ache when I look up and to the left. My right nostril has become full of boogers and crust. to the point where when i inhale it whistles and tickles. I was scared to sneeze, the post op instructions said not to blow my nose for two weeks, or sniffle and snort. Finally a sneeze came and there was nothing I could do about it - and it was fine. It made my nose run witch created a lake for the boogers and crust to slide out on. Yay. Appetite is back to normal. I was able to get some things done around the house. Still a bit of fatigue to speak of but nothing major. I am planning on venturing out of the house tomorrow for a coffee and some odds and ends. I am following the post op instructions to a T. The nurse at the hospital stressed to me the most important thing for healing is rest. I dont know if any of you have ever been ill, and then when you started feeling better you went back to your routine only to discover that you should have taken that extra day off, because you found yourself more sick than when you started. I really don't want to push it with this. It's important to rest and follow your post op instructions. For me it's 2 sprays of a steroid nasal inhaler up my nose twice a day and 1 drop 4 times a day of an antibiotic eye drop. I take the eye drop every 4 hours while awake and the spray when I wake up and before bed. They also say for the first 3 days to put a cold/ice compress on your face a few times a day , and after day 3 switch to warm compresses - which I've been doing. Both provide a certain amount of soothing, and I find them relaxing. ANYWAY. Not much more to say about today. Every day there is improvement and I am only doing as much as I feel I can handle. I think it's important not to push yourself when you have a hole drilled in your face, right? Or in some cases a hole punched in the front of your face as well. I will  update this blog for the next 2 days and if nothing out of the normal happens I won't update until my follow up, or until there are any complications. So far so good. Also, in case you're wondering. I have not had to clear any tears from my surgery. Too soon to say if it's a success, but that symptom is now gone. My eyes aren't dry and seem "normal" Anyway, toodles.

Day 6: Lethargy is still kicking around but not as bad. I have a very dull ache at the surgery site and the stent is kind of irritating, as it rubs against my eye ever so slightly as I move it from left to right. The pain is controllable with normal Tylenol. I have only taken 1 and a half of the narcotic pain pills since coming home from surgery in the last 6 days, so I think I'm doing Ok. I'm still sticking to the eye drops every 4 hours and the steroid nose spray twice a day as per instructions, and the warm compresses a couple times a day. I was able to get out and run some errands, go out for lunch, buy some stuff for my fish tank and grab a coffee today. I felt tired by the end of it all, baby steps ! I also want to stress, if you live alone like I do it's important to buy easy to make foods (soups, frozen stuff, snacks, fruit etc) because if you're feeling anything like me you won't want to deal with cooking, dishes, cleaning etc. I saved my ass. I only have done one load of dishes in the last 7 days and minimal cleaning. Gives me way more time to relax and focus on healing. The bruise on my eye is very noticeable , people are staring at it when I go out - probably thinking I'm a thug or got beat up, I guess I kind of did in a way. So if you have anything that involves photos or important face to faces coming up try not to schedule this surgery within a few weeks of that. Other than that day 6 has been the best so far - though the mountain of boogers keeps returning. When i can blow my nose in another week I will be quite happy.

Day 6 bruising update:

Day 7 : Feeling close to back to normal. Still a wee bit of pressure in my head. Got out and did normal people stuff today. Booger mountain has all but disappeared. I also wanted to share some information in regards to if you have a " booger" problem like I did. I called my surgeon and he said you can use nasal sprays (to their recommended dosage of course) but avoid picking at crusts, and don't pick your nose. Knocking the tube out of place would probably suck. I've had a bit of a headache all day, not sure if it is related to the surgery, but most likely it is. Tomorrow I am allowed to return to some normal activity which includes : bending at the waist, being "active" in general. My steroid/antibotic eye drops are just about done and in another week I can finally blow my nose, and "snuff". It's weird the things you look forward to when you can't do them. I haven't had any nose bleeds or anything in a couple of days, and the bruising is about the same so no need for a picture. Follow up is on day 12. I am also looking forward to being able to not sleep sitting up. I hate the crap out of it. So far any other position and I can feel uncomfortable pressure and some aching. Not much else to say. So far the experience hasn't been terrible - considering the other stories out there.

Day 8: Today is the first day I was allowed to do "physical" stuff so I walked on my elliptical machine. Went to a record store, cleaned my apartment, did some re arranging. Wooowww! And now it's 9pm and I'm tired. I am not sure if I am still healing or have been accustomed to being lazy. I am only updating today because I had an incident where I had a big, sticky, thick mucous ball in my nose which was blorting (yes blorting) back and forth every time I inhaled or exhaled. Finally it got to the front of my nose and I dabbed it with a kleenex, I felt the stent pull at my eye , it was Nassstaaaayyy. The sensation wasn't bad, it didn't hurt. It just .... have you ever been a kid and shoved something up your nose and pulled it out the other side? Or.. anything like that? it was like that but only going to my eye. Anyway, so along with the booger came the stent (it didn't come out or come undone, or anything like that) I saw it and being the smart guy I am I was like, I had better poke that back in there. So I did. I've worked with enough silicone to know its flexible properties and I just assumed it would go back (mostly) to its previous form. SO anyway, yeah It seems to be okay? The stent doesn't feel like it has as much tension in my eye area, I feel like it's a bit more slack. So I called the opthomologist to say what happened, and asked if it was a big deal. He's out of office so I have to wait until tomorrow but it is in place in my eye and in to my nose so I am assuming that is the important part.

here is some information regarding DCR surgery that is NOT SCARY http://www.asoprs.org/files/public/infodcr.pdf
http://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/leaflets/files%5C100322dcr.pdf
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/sinus/patient_information/post_procedure_directions.html

I did also find a PDF which detailed what to do if your stent becomes dislodged or loose.
DO NOT CUT it or try to remove it yourself
DONT MESS WITH IT!
I mean, just use common sense. I found some mouth breathers on youtube who decided they should remove it themselves. And pulled it out through their eyes (knots, sutures and all.. Jesus!!!!)
You are apparently supposed to get some tape, and tape the loop to the side of your nose until it can be adjusted by your doctor. it's apparently not a big deal and can happen.

Day 16: I had an incident where I thought the stent had come loose and was hanging out my nose so I called the opthomologist and we had a follow up (this was around day 14) He took a look and said it looks fine, and that he can trim it a bit if it's irritating. I can see the stent when I look up my nose, and occasionally it gets crusted with snot and other gross stuff, and when that happens and I remove the snot I can feel the sensation of the stent pulling where my eye is, it sometimes hurts a little bit when this happens but nothing unbearable. The Dr also tested out my tear ducts with a saline flush and they are working perfectly, and draining in to my throat as they should. I am back to normal daily activities and really my only complaint is I am aware of the stent being there. Sometimes it clicks when I blink, or like I said I can feel it in my nose. For the most part it stays sort of naturally glued to the side of my nose and it's fine, but occasionally it moves around and that will make me sneeze or give me the sensation of something being up there. All of these things though are better than the constant eye watering I was having, followed by ice pick headaches. Thick discharge coming out, ahhh I don't miss those things. The stent is better. I went skiing without my eye watering for the first time in years !!! The stent however became frozen hahaha. It was -15 out and i could feel the snot freezing to the stent. it was a weird feeling, and my nose ran more than usual but I had probably the best ski trip I have had in years. So much fun ! I have an appointment for my stent removal in June. It is now March 15 so i have roughly 8 more weeks of it being in. i will update periodically but for now , everything is great! Just a little bruising on my eye still.