6 ms·

> By all fairness if you haven't had turbinate reduction it's going to be very hard to think you're suffering from a condition that is said to be caused by turb

> By all fairness if you haven't had turbinate reduction it's going to be very hard to think you're suffering from a condition that is said to be caused by turbinate reduction. In all fairness, did you read the article? The patient suffered the symptoms first (before ever hearing of the syndrome), then went looking for an explanation, then found a syndrome exactly matching his symptoms linked to turbinate reduction, thought that was weird because he didn't think he'd had that, and only then saw "turbinate reduction" in the records from his surgery.

k__ 11y ago
On the other hand its a standard procedure performed on many people. And if anxiety after surgery is common, then there is a good chance he will find enough people on the internet that they will already have formed a theory about this. I had anxiety with panic attacks that had came with (for me) real physical (pain) experience for a few years. so I think that those people really need help, but not in the form of creating new disease-names for them. They need psychological treatment and maybe some physical 'placebo' treatment/surgery to cure them. I got cured by telling myself over and over everything is okay, which felt like lying to myself.
- incongruity 11y ago
  Then why aren't we seeing a similar set of cases for other frequent surgeries that result in such debilitating pain as to drive people to suicide? I'm guessing we could look at appendectomies, gallbladder removals, wisdom tooth extractions, c-sections, etc - where are the similarly acute cases if it's purely anxiety unrelated to the specifics of the surgical procedure?
  - arkades 11y ago
    There are many. This is why many elective procedures associated with anxiety and depression now require psych evals before a surgeon will consent to do them, at least at more prestigious medical centers. You'll note if you go in for cosmetic surgery, lap band, gastric bypass, etc. many of these centers will ask for you to see a psych before proceeding. Additionally, more anecdotally, have you ever visited the "alt med" internet? It's literally swarms of people with anxiety and depression obsessing over how random medical minutiae (related to their dental work, their lap-choli, etc.) explain their set-of-symptoms-that-are-typical-anxiety. These "similar sets of cases" aren't hidden. They're ubiquitous. They just set themselves as opposed to (1) the idea that they might have a psychological illness, and (2) anything that smacks of "establishment" medical care (which they both view with anxiety and with disdain and hurt, because it was that establishment that does not take their complaints at face value.)
YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
I read the article yes, thank you for checking. And to be perfectly clear: >> he didn't think he'd had that, and only then saw "turbinate reduction" in the records So what? That's just something that was in the article. Who knows what really happened. Maybe the guy knew and he forgot about it (it's called cryptomnesia). Maybe the article misreports it. Maybe, who knows what. You can't draw firm conclusions by something someone said once. Now can I check with you whether you read what you wrote? Because it didn't make any sense at all. How can anyone who hasn't had turbinate reduction think they have a condition that is caused by turbinate reduction? That does not compute.
- haberman 11y ago
  > You can't draw firm conclusions by something someone said once. The only people in this thread who are drawing firm conclusions are the ones expressing the firm conclusion that Empty Nose Syndrome is 100% attributable to anxiety. I certainly don't claim to know what is going on. But I am not at all convinced by the people who are confidently dismissing the possibility of any other causes. > So what? That's just something that was in the article. Who knows what really happened. Even if I grant you that he might have unknowingly remembered that his surgery included turbinate reduction, that doesn't matter unless he knew about Empty Nose Syndrome before he experienced the symptoms. > Now can I check with you whether you read what you wrote? Because it didn't make any sense at all. How can anyone who hasn't had turbinate reduction think they have a condition that is caused by turbinate reduction? That does not compute. Here is why it computes. Empty Nose Syndrome, as described from various sources, has a common set of symptoms and is linked to one specific surgical procedure. Now let us suppose your theory is correct and it is caused solely by anxiety focused on the surgical intervention. If that were the case, you would expect many people to express this same set of symptoms from other nose-related surgeries. You would expect that the description of Empty Nose Syndrome would then expand to be linked to a number of different nasal surgeries. After all, if these patients are hypochondriacs whose anxiety causes physical discomfort, why would this anxiety be limited to only turbinate reduction? Now maybe your theory is that awareness of the syndrome itself creates the power of suggestion that causes the patient to feel these symptoms. And without that and the intellectual link to turbinate reduction, they will not experience the symptoms. Now that theory is completely contrary to the story given in the article. But besides that, how under your theory did the syndrome begin? If it takes the power of suggestion to create the sensation, how did the first people experience it? Anything that created this syndrome out of thin air for turbinate reduction should be able to create it out of thin air for other nose surgeries. And yet for 15 years it has continued to be linked specifically to turbinate reduction. Why?

k__ 11y ago

On the other hand its a standard procedure performed on many people. And if anxiety after surgery is common, then there is a good chance he will find enough people on the internet that they will already have formed a theory about this. I had anxiety with panic attacks that had came with (for me) real physical (pain) experience for a few years. so I think that those people really need help, but not in the form of creating new disease-names for them. They need psychological treatment and maybe some physical 'placebo' treatment/surgery to cure them. I got cured by telling myself over and over everything is okay, which felt like lying to myself.

incongruity 11y ago
Then why aren't we seeing a similar set of cases for other frequent surgeries that result in such debilitating pain as to drive people to suicide? I'm guessing we could look at appendectomies, gallbladder removals, wisdom tooth extractions, c-sections, etc - where are the similarly acute cases if it's purely anxiety unrelated to the specifics of the surgical procedure?
- arkades 11y ago
  There are many. This is why many elective procedures associated with anxiety and depression now require psych evals before a surgeon will consent to do them, at least at more prestigious medical centers. You'll note if you go in for cosmetic surgery, lap band, gastric bypass, etc. many of these centers will ask for you to see a psych before proceeding. Additionally, more anecdotally, have you ever visited the "alt med" internet? It's literally swarms of people with anxiety and depression obsessing over how random medical minutiae (related to their dental work, their lap-choli, etc.) explain their set-of-symptoms-that-are-typical-anxiety. These "similar sets of cases" aren't hidden. They're ubiquitous. They just set themselves as opposed to (1) the idea that they might have a psychological illness, and (2) anything that smacks of "establishment" medical care (which they both view with anxiety and with disdain and hurt, because it was that establishment that does not take their complaints at face value.)

YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago

I read the article yes, thank you for checking. And to be perfectly clear: >> he didn't think he'd had that, and only then saw "turbinate reduction" in the records So what? That's just something that was in the article. Who knows what really happened. Maybe the guy knew and he forgot about it (it's called cryptomnesia). Maybe the article misreports it. Maybe, who knows what. You can't draw firm conclusions by something someone said once. Now can I check with you whether you read what you wrote? Because it didn't make any sense at all. How can anyone who hasn't had turbinate reduction think they have a condition that is caused by turbinate reduction? That does not compute.

haberman 11y ago
> You can't draw firm conclusions by something someone said once. The only people in this thread who are drawing firm conclusions are the ones expressing the firm conclusion that Empty Nose Syndrome is 100% attributable to anxiety. I certainly don't claim to know what is going on. But I am not at all convinced by the people who are confidently dismissing the possibility of any other causes. > So what? That's just something that was in the article. Who knows what really happened. Even if I grant you that he might have unknowingly remembered that his surgery included turbinate reduction, that doesn't matter unless he knew about Empty Nose Syndrome before he experienced the symptoms. > Now can I check with you whether you read what you wrote? Because it didn't make any sense at all. How can anyone who hasn't had turbinate reduction think they have a condition that is caused by turbinate reduction? That does not compute. Here is why it computes. Empty Nose Syndrome, as described from various sources, has a common set of symptoms and is linked to one specific surgical procedure. Now let us suppose your theory is correct and it is caused solely by anxiety focused on the surgical intervention. If that were the case, you would expect many people to express this same set of symptoms from other nose-related surgeries. You would expect that the description of Empty Nose Syndrome would then expand to be linked to a number of different nasal surgeries. After all, if these patients are hypochondriacs whose anxiety causes physical discomfort, why would this anxiety be limited to only turbinate reduction? Now maybe your theory is that awareness of the syndrome itself creates the power of suggestion that causes the patient to feel these symptoms. And without that and the intellectual link to turbinate reduction, they will not experience the symptoms. Now that theory is completely contrary to the story given in the article. But besides that, how under your theory did the syndrome begin? If it takes the power of suggestion to create the sensation, how did the first people experience it? Anything that created this syndrome out of thin air for turbinate reduction should be able to create it out of thin air for other nose surgeries. And yet for 15 years it has continued to be linked specifically to turbinate reduction. Why?