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Page 1 of 2  I read on the forums that someone was asking about a good surgeon for sinus surgery, which got me thinking. I had sinus surgery five years ago for the same basic problem, a badly deviated septum, and I’d like to offer the following advice to anyone considering it.
Surgery is a last option. I struggled for most of my life with an internally smashed up face, resulting from a childhood tussle with my brother that ended when a steel chair keeled over and bashed in my nose. My septum ended up at about a forty-five degree angle, effectively shutting off half of my sinusoidal real estate. Because all the sinuses in the left half of my face couldn’t drain and were deprived of air, they became a petri dish and I routinely got head colds about five or six times a year – not a great situation for a singer. The head colds eventually ran together and became a chronic sinus infection that didn’t respond to drugs. That’s when I started to seriously consider surgery.
I called a friend, a doctor who is the back specialist for the New York Yankees, and I said “I know that you know that absolute best person in New York for sinus surgery, and I want his name. Oh, and by the way, he has to respect singers.” He told me that he indeed did know the best guy, and gave me his name.
So here’s my advice - find the absolute best person to do the work – someone who is tops in the field, has done a thousand successful operations just like yours, and certainly someone who respects singers. Don’t even think about using someone just because he or she is conveniently close to where you live, unless you live next door to the best sinus surgeon on the planet. Go to wherever that person works. You won’t regret it. Fortunately for me, I live in New York so getting to the surgeon my friend recommended was not a problem.
When I met Dr. Lanny Garth Close, he made me get an MRI before we could have a serious consultation. With printout in hand, he told me that he had done about two thousand procedures like the one he planned to perform on me, and that he could virtually guarantee me a ‘perfect procedure’. He used the MRI as a map for a computer-assisted surgical technique that he employs. The plan was to break and reset the septum, and to go into all the surrounding sinuses and improve the way that they all drained. It was a slow and exacting process that would take about four hours.
He also told me that yes, he respected singers, and had done quite a few operations just like mine on singers who kept coming back to thank him, as the improvements from the surgery became more apparent over time, that two or three or four years afterward I’d still be feeling the benefits of the procedure. Even though my insurance would only cover half of the cost since the doctor was out of network, I never considered finding someone cheaper. Don’t you do that either.
Dr. Close made good on his promise of a perfect procedure. There was very little external swelling, no black eyes or bruising, I was in and out of the hospital in one day, and although I was given two different rx’s for pain meds, I never took either one. The recovery period was a matter of months, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant, partly due to my anxiety over whether I’d made the right decision. I couldn’t sing for weeks, and when I started up again, everything felt somewhat odd. The internal swelling caused by the surgery subsided gradually, and my face eventually stopped feeling like it had been run over by a trash truck.
The benefits of the surgery far outweighed the pain and inconvenience. I don’t get head colds anymore, for one thing. Breathing through both nostrils is still a sweet novelty. Having all my head resonance is likewise a thrill, and singing is easier, more consistent, and sounds better than ever. The fundamental quality of my voice remained the same, but I have more overall resonance and flexibility, so my fear that the surgery would completely change the sound of my voice was unfounded.
I would like your story to have a happy ending like mine did. Don’t look for a bargain. Find someone with a record of successful procedures. If possible, talk to some former patients and find out how they are doing post-op. And perhaps most importantly, try everything else before you resort to surgery. That includes nasal irrigation, antibiotics (both in pill form and nebulized), allergy testing and desensitizing, acupuncture, chiropractic, diet modification, steam inhalation, gargling, and anything else you can think of that might do the trick short of getting the inside of your face roto-rootered. Even a successful procedure is far from fun, and unless you are dealing with physical damage that can’t be reversed any other way, there may be options that will save you from the knife.
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