Empty Nose Syndrome in the media · MIDI LIBRE · 22–23 April 2016
Brett Helling and Empty Nose Syndrome After Septoplasty and Turbinate Surgery
A French newspaper article described how a seemingly routine operation intended to improve nasal breathing could be followed by severe changes in breathing sensation, dryness, pain, insomnia, psychological distress and loss of normal daily function.
The following page preserves the full information from the supplied English version of the MIDI LIBRE article while presenting it in a clearer, more professional website format.
A seemingly innocuous operation that transformed patients’ lives
The article from MIDI LIBRE N° 2766a, Friday 22–Saturday 23 April 2016, describes an operation intended to relieve breathing difficulties in patients who may suffer from allergies or chronic nasal obstruction.
The article asks the reader to imagine losing the natural, unconscious sensation of breathing. Instead of breathing as a regular and peaceful automatic movement, patients may feel that they must constantly think about breathing and force themselves to draw air.
Alongside this altered breathing sensation, the article describes burning in the nose, a feeling of suffocation and shortness of breath. It also focuses on the frustration patients may experience when doctors tell them that the illness is imaginary, that it does not exist, or that they are simply tired.
Brett Helling: allergies, septoplasty and additional turbinate surgery
The article presents Brett Helling, 36, whose case had previously been reported in a long BuzzFeed investigation into Empty Nose Syndrome.
It compares the experience metaphorically with Kovaliov in Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose: a person whose nose seems to have disappeared from normal existence. But unlike the fictional character, the article argues, patients with ENS do not simply wake up with everything restored to its previous state.
The article explains that patients with Empty Nose Syndrome have often undergone turbinectomy or other surgery involving the nasal turbinates. It describes the turbinates as structures involved in moisture regulation inside the nose and notes that some doctors recommend reducing or removing them when patients complain of chronic respiratory discomfort.
Brett suffered from allergies, as did his brother. After repeated episodes of nasal blockage and colds, he eventually agreed to what was presented as a relatively straightforward operation: septoplasty to correct a deviated nasal septum.
According to the article, the surgeon also removed the turbinates without telling Brett beforehand that this additional procedure would be carried out.
Video about Brett Helling and Empty Nose Syndrome
“My life became hell”
The summer following the February 2014 operation, Brett was described as a shadow of his former self.
He no longer attended rehearsals with his music group. He was no longer able to work as he had before and increasingly shut himself inside his home.
In October, exhausted, he went to the emergency department and begged the nurse and medical team for surgical help because he was unable to sleep.
“I need to sleep or I will not survive this.”
According to the article, nobody there had heard of Empty Nose Syndrome. Brett was diagnosed with depression, and the head of the ENT department refused to receive him.
From that point, the article describes a worsening spiral. Brett did not take the medication he had been given because he remained convinced that his primary problem was not depression but Empty Nose Syndrome.
He stopped eating normally, stopped sleeping and stopped showering. Friends and relatives described how almost everything he talked about centered on his nose, comparing the repetition to a scratched record.
In December, his relationship ended. Brett returned to live with his parents, where he spent much of his time with tissues placed in his nose.
“I can’t live like this. My life has become hell,” he told his parents.
In February 2015, almost one year after the operation, Brett parked at the Jeremiah Morrow Bridge in Ohio. The article reports that he was lost there during a final crisis.
André Gourbillon and the wider symptom picture described in the article
The newspaper also refers to André Gourbillon, a retired nuclear technician who had previously been interviewed by L’Obs in a 2012 investigation into Empty Nose Syndrome.
“I have the impression that I am slowly fading away,” he said.
The article states that patients with this syndrome may experience intense pain, hyperventilation, nasal dryness and loss of taste and smell.
It also describes severe sleep problems and intense depression among some affected patients.
André Gourbillon reportedly found at least one way to sleep: a noisy machine that channels air and humidifies the nasal walls.
The article says that he stopped taking neuroleptic medication because it made him feel as if he were on another planet, but that he continued living with permanent facial pain.
Complication figures, patient advocacy and legal action in France
The article states that approximately 2 to 5% of patients undergoing turbinectomy experience complications.
It also notes that some ENT physicians had put forward a much higher figure of 14%.
These figures are preserved here because they were part of the original article. They should be understood as figures cited by the newspaper rather than as a definitive contemporary prevalence estimate for Empty Nose Syndrome.
The article reports that a victims’ association was created in France in 2011 and that it helped launch approximately twenty legal proceedings.
It also says that nine written questions had been submitted by elected representatives on the subject.
Finally, the article states that since the creation of the association, at least two of its members had been lost following severe crises.
Original MIDI LIBRE newspaper pages
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