This will be strictly for problem solving and building systems that help those in need and raise awareness. If interested comment below with ideas and how you’d like to contribute.
I moved back to Colorado after being in humid North Carolina and Florida and I’m almost certain it has been the direct cause of my symptoms becoming much worse. Anyone else? My nose is bone dry and all my symptoms aggravated.
Hi everyone,
I have a question for people with Empty Nose Syndrome (especially ENS Type).
Does anyone else experience any of the following?
In my case, I don't always have much nasal mucus, but I often feel thick mucus in my throat and the need to spit it out.
Has anyone else experienced this? Do you think it's related to ENS, and have you found anything that helps?
I'd really appreciate hearing about your experience. Thank you!
Its been 1 and half years since my surgery and went through really hard time especially fist 5 months, was showing all the symptoms of ens, severe anxiety and sleep disruption have resolved after treating depression, there was paradox obstruction and severe sytemic dryness on intial phase got resolved later, unfortunately i have to cop up with a severe period of fever and lately started the paradox obstruction suddenly with mild pain and bloody mucus from nose, its been two weeks, some degree of relief is there but sensation will lose alternating and some degree of numbness around the nose and eyes and forehead, can anyone help to comfort this situation with your experience , really looking forward to your insights
One final note - I feels pressure feelings sometimes inside my nose after a period of sensory loss which leads to better sensation later, is this nerve issues? Currently i am looking to do filler testing
Hello everyone!
I'm completely new to Reddit and this community so I apologize beforehand when I make mistakes or anything.. This is my first post ever and really want to share my experience with you all.
I found this community (sadly) after I've had my turbinate reduction by laser (with lateropositioning of the turbinates) in Germany. If I've found it earlier I seriously would have never done this cruel surgery..
My surgery was in February 2026. The first month I was bleeding as hell, through nose and mouth, which I struggled to manage.
After this phase at the first week of May, randomly from one day to another, I suddenly experienced an extremely dry nose and no air flow sensation. I had absolutely no crusting and no muccus. I couldn't feel anything in my nose which brought me panic attacks and sleepless nights.
I went to my ENT (where I had the surgery at) and he checked via endoscopy. He said everything is fine and told me my right nostril was still tight and if my breathing doesn't get any better I should get septoplasty since I also have a septum deviation to my right side. He didn't even really listen to my other symptoms, only gave me nasal spray for the dryness and left me after a check up of literal 5 minutes.
I tried those nasal sprays which brought me a little relief for the dryness but which lasted maybe only 30 minutes max. I can breathe a little better when I wear a mask and tried nose strips (which helped me a little). I have no burning sensation and absolutely no crusts but my muccus starts to flow when I eat spicy food or when I cry (which I have been doing constantly.. )
It's now almost 5 months and the symptoms go from a condition where it's manageable to panic attacks and sleepless nights. It's driving me crazy, especially because I can't feel the air in my nose. I maybe feel it in my throat but I can't really tell. This all leads to chest pain and depressive feelings..
Keeping in touch with friends and family and being social in general makes it so hard right now...
Ah! I also did the ENS test and it ranges from 9 to 12. Next week I'm going to visit an other ENT but I'm afraid he won't know what ENS is at all...
Do you guys have more tips how to survive the everyday life? And does that sound like ENS to you all or am I only in my healing phase? I'm so lost right now..
Anyways, thanks for reading all this shit..
(18 M) Since the start of the year I have been dealing with persistent blockage only in my left nostril during the night especially when I sleep. No matter in what position I sleep the turbinates in my left nostril always completely block my airflow which results. My sleep quality is bad and the fatigue from it makes it hard to do the things that I did before.At first, I taught that I had allergies. Allergy medicines and steroid sprays didn’t do anything (haven’t tried allergy shots tho).
My ENT now says that the problem is structural rather than an allergic reaction. Turns out my septum is also deviated. My doctor suggests that I need surgery (septo + turbinate reduction).
I am wondering if its the right move because the risk of ENT overwhelms me but I don’t think I have any other options left.
I had bilateral FESS and an inferior turbinate reduction almost six weeks ago. My recovery has been slow but overall has been going well, and over the last two weeks I was feeling about 80% back to normal. Over the last three days though, I’ve developed a lot of dull, tight pain and pressure, mostly in my forehead and between my eyes. My breathing is great and I’m not congested at all. I’m still doing saline irrigations 2-3 times a day. The only other symptom I’m having is some post-nasal drip. I’m just wondering if this can be a normal part of the healing process. With the holiday weekend I won’t be able to speak to my ENT for a few days.
This was done a year ago and worst decision ever. I had issues with my upper airways when sleeping which is cause of my sleep apnea.
Recovery was all over the place, feeling fine, feeling the openness, feeling the dryness, burning. Winter was brutal for me, the cold air was giving me a really bad sore throat. I do get relief when my nose makes enough mucus to block up one side of my nose.
I went to another ENT who looked at my nose with a camera and he showed me my turbinates on a screen, he said it wasn't ENS and said to use ointments and gels. I could see some dents in my turbinates (where I guess the other ENT blasted them).
I thankfully have full feeling, don't feel like I'm choking, the burning is bad but not crazy (more like a dull ache) and the burning is near the bottom of the entrance of my nose. The first couple of months after the procedure, I could not really feel my turbinates when I bent over but now when I bend over I can feel the blood pressure rushing into them. This is only on one side. My main problem is the nerve pain that shoot down to my jaw into my teeth.
I'm going back to my primary ENT as he said there's a procedure to enlarge them? I think that's my main problem, if they got big again it would humidify the air enough to where mucus can make it down before it dries up.
It doesn't help that I am a severe hypochondriac and when hyper focus on them it gets worse.
I took the ENS test and my score was a 8?
It's mostly the burning and dryness at the rim of my nose.
Yesterday I went outside and felt my nose was little blocked and started monitoring my breathing leading me to feeling a little suffocation. But then I came back home played games and even slept properly. Today morning I woke up and I feel my nose is blocked from inside like my outer nose feels open but inside it feels blocked. Even tho in cold room i can feel the coolness inside my nose, I'm scared I have got ens. I did turbinate reduction by coblation and posterior nasal nurectomy.
Guys
If my turbinates are normal size and preserved
Mucosa lining is healthy and functional
No scarring
Normal healing on ent examination
What are the chances of developing ens later
Don't be rude guys I'm really sorry but I'm little anxious person :(
Posting here because the FB community hasn’t been helpful; This is my scan, as you can see pretty much everything has been removed on one side and the other remains intact.
Cotton does help to a degree and helps stabilize my breathing as it allows for me to breathe through my good side more. I’ve spoke with all 3 doctors (Citardi, Das, Tabor) here in the US that deal with ENS, except for Nayak who is on an indefinite sabbatical.
All 3 surgeons have had different solutions but I’m curious as to who here has gotten treatment, if anyone here has a similar anatomy to mine, and what surgical options may be the best suited.
AESNV has formalised a collaboration agreement with Flowgy to promote research, prevention, awareness and a better understanding of Empty Nose Syndrome.
Flowgy develops functional nasal analysis tools using CFD technology, which can provide complementary information about nasal airflow and help advance the understanding of nasal physiology.
Thanks to this agreement, AESNV members will be able to access a 30% discount on Flowgy’s Basal Functional Report, in accordance with the conditions established in the collaboration.
As always, this agreement does not constitute a medical recommendation and does not replace individual assessment by qualified healthcare professionals.
You can read the full news item here:
https://sindromenarizvacia.org/2026/06/18/aesnv-flowgy-colaboracion-sindrome-nariz-vacia/
—
AESNV – Spanish Association for Empty Nose Syndrome
I got checked in few hospitals and only one doctor said that there is deviation of bone in upper area and needs to be fixed I also have visible lower nose bent and left nostril is kinda small but overall
I had septoplasty last year it was cuz of tissue or muscle growth inside like nose so idk how much turbinate is reduced but I do feel little bit ens
But it may not be ens but main problem is it’s dry and when I think or hyperfocus only then it’s a problem and sometime it swells and sometime it’s perfect like not 100% but I also feel there is a blockage in that side idk maybe cuz of bone or maybe cuz turbinate was reduced so I just feel that way
So should I get the surgery done? Like fixing bone in middle and lower (external approach meaning cutting skin from outside then correcting without touching turbinate)
In Japan, ENS is often said to occur in about 1% of cases, but based on what I see on X (Twitter) and other social media, it seems much more common than that. I suspect this is because many patients are not diagnosed or are not recognized as ENS by doctors, so they are not included in official statistics.
Also, some people seem to develop symptoms years after surgery. I wonder what the actual mechanism behind ENS is.
It also feels like medical knowledge about ENS in Japan is still quite behind compared to other countries. I’ve heard that there are only about three surgeons in Japan who actively perform ENS-related procedures.
There doesn’t seem to be a well-established patient community in Japan either, but in the US and other countries, there are active communities and much higher awareness of ENS. However, ENS also appears to be much more commonly discussed overseas. I’m not sure if that is simply due to population size or reporting bias.
I would like to hear from someone knowledgeable about this.
Hello, I want to pretext this with the fact that I don't have ENS and I have sympathy to everyone that goes through something like that.
My story is somewhat long, but I'll try to summarize it as much as possible.
I'm a 25 yr old male who used to be very active. I live in a relatively humid place (Ireland). I've had nasal issues for a very long time, perhaps 7-8 years. One nostril would always be blocked (turbinate enlarged) and I wouldn't breathe ideal, but it was enough to sleep. I also suffered badly from allergies when I was a student in the Netherlands for 4-5 years, I had some summers where I would quite often sneeze blood out and would just ignore it without taking allergy medications (stupid, I know) and I would also quite often take Oxymetalozine based decongestants. Now, about December of last year, my condition got from uncomfortable to straight up terrible. I would wake up multiple times at night, wake up feeling terrible even after 7-8 hours of sleep and my mouth feeling completely dried out. At first, I had jaw pain so I thought it could be from a wisdom tooth I know I had to remove in my bottom jaw. But even after removing it, nothing improved ( I thought there might be some relation).
I got allergy tested and I found out I have allergies to pollens, but no dust mites, no nothing. I've also been eating everything my whole life, so I dont think I have glutten allergies and other food allergies. One thing that I do have (even from when I was a kid) is throat clearing. I did suspect LPR and I went to a doctor that said it might be mild, so I took 1-2 months of meds with not much help.
To keep it short, I have nasal valve collapse + one side over the course of the night gets completely blocked. This makes it extremely hard to breathe and I basically do a mix of sleeping with my mouth open and through the nose (really hard). I've tried breathe right strips, but those don't help too much. The weird thing is that when I get up, drink some water and stand up for a while, it gets significantly better. I've also been on Dymista (allergy + steroid) spray for 3+ months. One thing I havent tried is capsaicin spray, but idk what the evidence for that is. I also saw there is some kind of Buteyko exercise, but I get like 30+ consistent seconds on the initial test, so it probably doesn't apply.
Ive been to many ENTs, most of which who suggested RF turbinate reduction. I am pretty scared of ENS, but 6+ months of sleeping like 2-3 quality hours a day has lead me into a really dark place.
I know asking for advice on whether to get surgery in a reddit of people with ENS might be bad, but my life has been genuinely going downhill ever since this has happened, so I ask for help: Do I do turbinate reduction ( I have an appointment with an ENS aware doctor, I saw him in your enstips) or do I try capsaicin maybe or idk what else.
Not really sure how to proceed...so thanks in advance for any form of help or advice.
Hi, y’all. I honestly don’t even know how I ended up here. I’m just trying to get my fundraiser out there for my revision surgery. I do not have social medias and just rly don’t know what to do and I’m not even sure if this would be a good site to post my link. I would share with family and friends but with all honesty they usually come to me for help so to not share personal information I will leave it at that. If you have time please check it out it tells my story is in the link. I didn’t go into detail as far as how all the previous revisions has lead to the weird cartilage deformities at the tip of my nose and on the inside where incisions have been made. I have weird things that go on in there. It feels like cartilage is trying to poke out and I just keep like sores on that area and it’s just so aggravating. I had all plans and financials sorted but somethings happened and now I’m in a time crunch and bind.
Doctors have reduced my turbinates twice (turbinate, then septo+turbinate). I feel like it’s hard to breathe through my nose. After the 2nd surgery(septo + turbinate), I really felt like I could breathe so well, like life changing, and I felt air like going to my brain. However a few months after my breathing started getting worse.
The ENTs all say my nose is wide open so idk.
I had my anxiety controlled for like 3 yrs....I was on serta and clonotril..then for some reason I stopped serta for 3 months and the anxiety has relapsed...I have restarted it it's been 5 weeks though there is improvement I am still struggling with sleep. Anyone has had similar experience of symptoms relapsing and calming down again?
Hey all,
I don't know if this is directly relevant to the subreddit, but I don't know where else I could've asked this. I've a wide dorsum (nasal bridge) and I want to get a cosmetic rhinoplasty (largely bone-only, I don't need tip work) but seeing posts about surgeons performing turbinate reductions along with rhinoplasties has me on edge, so I want to get it in writing on the consent form that the surgeon wouldn't touch my turbinates during surgery. While I don't live there, I'd like to get the rhinoplasty in the US, so I wanted to ask you: is that a reasonable request? I know consent forms are mostly standardized, but is there a way a surgeon can put it in writing that the turbinates will not be touched, as I'm deathly afraid of risking ENS in any capacity, or is that a lost cause? I'd appreciate any advice!