Sinus surgery packing/dressing not dissolved

[silver50]

I had functional endoscopic sinus surgery on 11th October. I wasn’t aware I had any nasal dressings in my nose but had read that dissolvable packing gets used nowadays. Two weeks in I’m getting a bad smell in my nose and wasn’t feeling so good. Got antibiotics. A week later chunks of spongy packing stuff came out when rinsing with my sinus rinse bottle. I’m on a second lot of antibiotics now and have seen my surgeon two weeks ago. It was him that told me the material I was getting was the dissolving packing.

However now we’re day 40 after my surgery and more of this material is still appearing. In total I guess there’s been a fair bit of it now so I’d like to think I’m clearing it.

It seems obvious the dressings haven’t dissolved well and some is probably sitting causing some infection/bad smell.

You can tell the stuff is like a hybrid spongy material.

Anyone else had this or know if the stuff always normally dissolves within a week or so (as I have read)?

[specialmom]

Gosh, both of you with this issue. Is removing the packing really that terrible that they cause this situation with patients instead? How are you both doing now a week later?

[Baseballmomof2boys]

I just had this procedure 6 weeks ago and am experiencing the same symptoms. The packing is not dissolving. Smell is awful and bright green. Surgeon put me on antibiotics and steroids and tried sucking it out but it’s still there. Did you improve? This is awful!

[silver50]

Hi yes after a number of weeks it did all seem to resolve itself ok. So try not to worry. Our bodies probably are pretty good at ejecting stuff like this out.
Sadly (as my surgeon half predicted) my sinus issues haven’t been vastly improved. I can breathe better through my nose but due to allergies I still have inflammation/headache type symptoms.

[Baseballmomof2boys]

Thanks for your response. It’s still early here but same. I’m breathing much better through my nose but am still getting the daily sinus headaches. Sure hope it improves.