Anybody ever dealt with a swollen turbinate?

I feel that I’m experienced with pain and TMS now as I’ve beaten conditions like pelvic pain, finger pain, back pain, and trigeminal neuralgia symptoms in the past 7-8 years.

I’m now dealing with a symptom that is swelling almost 24/7 and I’m kind of on to it as possibly being TMS but haven’t heard a lot of things about it in the TMS community as it’s not painful and blocks my breathing. So a month ago I blew my nose and noticed some minor blood in my right nostril and felt something in my nose. My turbinate in the right nostril was swollen. Then 3 days later came pain and pressure in that same area on the outside of my nose that was on and off and feeling that my face was hot that was also on and off. I chalked the pain/heat feeling to TMS as I thought that was pretty weird and doesn’t make sense as it happened days after the turbinate swelling. After 2-3 weeks the pain/pressure feeling has been gone but I’ve been getting 1-2 second pain anywhere on my body a couple times a day (I am convinced even this pain is TMS and will pass eventually). But, the main thing I’m dealing with that is bothering me is the turbinate swelling which effects my breathing. I went to a doctor who said it’s turbinate hypertrophy and followed up with an ENT who took a ct scan that was normal besides having a deviated septum which I know I’ve always had and can’t breathe that good from before through my left nostril. My turbinate wasn’t that swollen at that moment when they took the scan and looked inside my nose (funny because the dang turbinate is swollen almost 24/7) and mentioned to just use Flonase which hasn’t done anything. He did mention we could do a septoplasty surgery for my septum and to reduce the turbinate size which I’m very cautious of doing at the moment and don’t believe 100% that this will fix my issue even though I’ve heard a deviated septum could cause “turbinate hypertrophy”.

The reason I think it may be TMS is because for some reason the turbinate isn’t swollen right away when waking up sometimes in the morning. I’ve noticed if I stay in bed in the morning while half asleep (closed eyes but noticing my breathing) I can breathe fine through the right nostril, but when I get out of bed it becomes swollen after a minute and stays swollen all day and affects my breathing. I even went to sleep one night at 10 pm and woke up an hour later noticing my breathing was great and that the turbinate had completely shrunk and the redness inside my nostril was gone as well but I fell back asleep quickly to which I would assume it would swell back up in a minute of being awake. Sometimes in middle of night when I wake up to use the restroom it’s a 50/50 on whether it’s blocked or not. It also shrinks in size when being outside sometimes but swells back up when being inside pretty quickly. Also when exercising I can breathe good and during a shower but both are short lived and the turbinate swells back as I’ve heard it does in turbinate hypertrophy.

Has anybody dealt with this? I know there’s not a lot on swelling in TMS and on this specific situation. I feel like going back to the same ENT or a different ENT to show them the turbinate swelling again and explain all the stuff that I’ve recently found out but I’m not really sure if that would accomplish anything. I feel as that maybe if I got reassurance that if my deviated septum would be truly causing this as I don’t know exactly which side is deviated as I’ve read the opposite side of the deviation in the nostril could swell the turbinate. I mentioned I’ve noticed the turbinate swelling reduced after sleep sometimes, so how would a structural issue like a deviated septum cause it to go away like the one time when I fell asleep at 10 and woke up an hour later.

 

Hi,

I don't know if there is a TMS component to this.

I have the same, swollen turbinates + deviated septum on my left side.

Discovered via a nasal endoscopy.

I use azelastine .1% nasal spray daily, which helps alot.

I am now able to do long cardio gym sessions without struggling to breathe.

That was my goal, and the rest is just whatever it is.

What are you trying to do/find out in your search for answers? And what if the answer remains indefinite?

 

Hey, the symptom is just very weird to me how it happened after a minor nose bleed (my finger TMS pain that happened a couple years ago was from a dumbbell basically lightly hitting my finger nail and caused some blood from the nail underneath, but it caused constant pain for months lol that wasn’t real). They say 70-80% of people have deviated septums and I’ve been reading how the autonomic nervous system controls the turbinates and that any blood related anatomy can be a target for TMS.

Also, I got “TMS pain” 3 days later after the turbinate swelling in one nostril. The turbinate swelling is still there but the pain symptoms wax/wane in different areas of my face and body. The turbinate symptom seems to have a pattern, it goes away while sleeping sometimes and in the morning does that happen for you? It’s like my nervous system shuts off and resets, but the second I am fully awake it swells up. I seem to get relief during exercise which is a little different than you but I know TMS effects us all differently.

I wanted to see if anybody else has had this situation as reading about nose stuff and TMS is not that common. I will treat it as TMS because as I mentioned the timing/symptom itself is very strange and the focus, obsessing, frustrated, fixating on it is all things that I’ve been doing just like other TMS pains that would pop up for me.

 

Treating it like TMS sounds like a good plan. You did go to the doctor and he gave you a couple of answers which you can ponder while you treat it as TMS.
TMS pain/symptoms change, move around, vary in intensity. That's what yours is doing. Also, you went to the doctor and on that day, you swelling was lower than usual. Again, another TMS sign. I think you are on the right track. Maybe check out the SEP program on this site if you haven't done it before. It's a good starting point to work on!

 

I deal with this. Although I’ve never gotten an official diagnosis from a doctor. I have widespread facial pain, tension whatever-I just assume all these symptoms are related-they vary too wildly, switch from side to side etc. the blocked side switches throughout the day and night, I had a point a few weeks ago where I was breathing fine and totally forgot about this issue. It was also a really rough winter here and the cold is definitely not great for a stressed nervous system. Pretty sure as I get out of fight or flight this issue will go away as prior to this recent bout of TMS a year ago I never noticed this issue.

you have nothing to lose by applying a TMS approach here