Skip to main content

Nose Job Healed after Eleven Short Years

Eleven years after my nose job, my nose has finally healed.

Back in 1999, I had septoplasty to straighten the inside of my nose. My doctor told me it would help me prevent my frequent sinus infections. (It didn't.) For the first time, I could breathe through both sides of my nose at once, but at the cost of constant nosebleeds. The septum (the cartilage inside the center of the nose) didn't heal until a few weeks ago.

Last May--seven months ago--I started taking megadoses of zinc. The nosebleeds mostly stopped. Then a few weeks ago after reading an abstract(1) on iron interfering with zinc absorption, I began taking iron at night and zinc in the morning. (According to the article, the interference applies only to non-food sources of the minerals. Go ahead and have your surf and turf without worry.)

An aside: since taking my iron and zinc at different times, I've been able to cut down on the magnesium. I went from 750 mg to 500 mg per day.

Over the past year, I've taken some other steps to improve my vitamin and mineral absorption: I eat very little grain (it's full of antinutrients), I soak and roast nuts and pumpkin seeds before eating them to neutralize their antinutrients, I stopped taking acid blockers (made possible through a low-carb diet), and I eat a good deal of fat with every meal. I don't drink coffee or tea within a few hours of taking an iron pill. I didn't do all these things to end my nosebleeds--but that's been one of the benefits. (I'm planning a post on all the health improvements I've seen on Christmas day, this blog's one-year anniversary.)

At long last, I've healed. The nosebleeds have all but stopped, even though this has been one of the driest winters I can remember.

What I Should have Done Instead of Septoplasty
  • I should have stopped eating wheat, and really, any other grains. I find wheat very congesting. The congestion gives germs a place to get a foothold and cause an infection.
  • I should have left the engineering field years sooner than I did. How can something that's so unstable be so dull? I work for an old, conservative, stable CPA firm now. Compared to the engineering field, it's like Animal House. I had constant sinus infections in college and for five years afterward bouncing around the job market. (However, I spent the first year out of college working on a loading dock where the air was so dirty my snot was gray. No sinus infections, though.) I left the field ten years ago and haven't had a sinus infection since.

Thinking about Having a Nose Job (Rhinoplasty)?
Unless you're knocking things over with your nose, or you're planning to trade on your good looks, don't. If you think it'll improve your chances of finding a mate, have you seen some of the married uggos out there? If my experience is any indication, plastic surgery is real surgery with real risks, blood, temporary splints sewn into your nose, drainage, vomiting, and a number of days of mouth-breathing and precious vacation days spent recovering. Fix everything else about your looks before thinking about surgery--you might change your mind.

What Not do Do
Don't take Flonase (an inhaled steroid). It doesn't help much, may make you worse, and increases your risk for diabetes.

(1) "Studies on the bioavailability of zinc in humans: effects of heme and nonheme iron on the absorption of zinc" by NW Solomons and RA Jacob. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 1981 vol. 34 no. 4 475-482.
Labels:

Comments

Aaron B. said…
How much zinc are you calling a "megadose"? I've been supplementing with zinc too, after learning of all the familiar symptoms that can be caused by too high a copper/zinc ratio, but I've been wondering if I should take more. Thanks.
January 27, 2011
Lori Miller said…
Aaron, I take 115 mg a day. That's in addition to eating meat one or two times a day.

The RDA is 15 mg a day--clearly not enough for me, but that may be enough for others.
January 27, 2011
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Winning! Read some good news!

The good news keeps on coming. After four years of the country being in the biggest mess that most of us have lived through, it feels like spring is here early. The cold wind is refreshing, the snow is sparkling, and the days are getting longer.  Photo from Pixabay . If you're getting this post by email, click here to see embedded videos from X. Trump bans the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in the name of "gender affirming care."  This is just an executive order, which the next president could overturn; we need Congress to pass a law. The CIA admits COVID was mostly likely a lab leak after all. "The CIA analysis supporting lab origin of COVID was completed and published internally during the Biden administration. It was withheld from the public by the Biden Administration in violation of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which mandated release," said Richard H. Ebright on X.  The CIA now says lab leak is the most likely explanation for COVID-19. R...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...
24 comments
Read more

Let's Grow Vegetables from Seed

MAHA may be a great idea, but what you do at your house is more important for your health than what's happening at the White House. Growing your own vegetables provides food that's fresher and tastes better than store-bought and helps you get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. If you grow enough, you can even can your own sauces and soups that don't have any franken-food ingredients. My first time growing celery from seed.  Here in central Indiana, it's time to plant celery from seed since the average last frost date is 10 weeks away. In a few weeks, it'll be time to plant tomatoes. There are a couple of ways to figure out when to start various seeds where you live: You can find out when it's time to plant things by 1) looking up your average last frost date, 2) getting a seed packet and looking at the instructions for starting the seeds indoors, and 3) counting backwards on a calendar by the number of weeks indicated. You could also ask Grok (X's AI fea...
1 comment
Read more

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...
24 comments
Read more

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."
23 comments
Read more