Deviated Septum and Sleepless Nights

Is it stress?

Two weeks ago I went to the ENT because my ears were hurting. In fact, they are always hurting, but I ignore them. I thought I had an ear infection, but my ears were clear when the local NP checked them. He referred me to Dr. Ventura in Tooele. He looked in my ears and asked if I took a bad forward fall when I was younger. Well, I would suppose--with ice skating, water-skiing, snow tubing, recess, brothers etc, I'm sure I took quite a few falls. In fact, when I cracked my rib last summer that was the side of my body that I landed on too. But I don't remember breaking anything. He said at some point I had cracked my jaw. Then he looked in my nose and said I had a deviated septum. Well, to look that up I found that those crooked noses can even happen at birth and most people don't have straight noses. (I think it was from the #10 can 2-yr old Ben threw up in the air and accidentally dropped on my nose--the worst bloody nose I ever had-and the only one until last year)

My problem is that I don't breathe. I am not sleeping well at night and I don't feel rested in the morning. He gave me some Nasonex to snort. I can't see how its helping. Its just disgusting to me as it drips down the back of my throat. yuk. Said that I had TMJ symptoms and should do facial jaw exercises-which seemed simple enough to me, but the exercises actually feel like they are agitating my ears more. And I can't seem to shake the neck and headaches of late. Any suggestions?

I was told that fixing the Deviated Septum can help with breathing and the surgery seems innocuous enough. My neighbors swear by the procedure that it was the best thing they both ever did for their breathing. I'm sold. Guess it will be a procedure where he remolds the cartilage and packs the nose and it is swollen for several days and..maybe I get stitches? I'll have to check up on all of this.

There Becky-two whole days of updating!

love,
Kimberly