Neuropathy caused by Nose Surgery. It does happen!

Can a permanent neuropathic condition occur as a result of nose surgery?

Answer: YES.

After my second major revision nose surgery by a young inexperienced surgeon in Toronto, Ontario, i developed within 6 months time severe neuropathic pain around the tip, columella, and nostril regions. The pain was so excruciating it felt like someone was taking a scalpel to my nose and slashing it. Another phenomena in conjunction with this pain, is hyperesthesia and allodynia.  This means the pain could be triggered further, by light sensation to the nose by touch, blowing fan, cold temperature, rain, etc.. I finally realized normal pain medication doesn't take away the pain. The only thing that helped control the pain, was anti-convulsant pills such as neurontin (gabapentin) however even though that helped somewhat, my neurologist recommended Lyrica (Pregabalin). That worked far better then gabapentin and you don't have to take as many pills. It however does have side effects one being lack of concentration and making you lethargic.

So what caused this? My opinion is excessive cutting and removing of soft tissue and tip cartilage, all around tip and surrounding area's. I don't believe its a coincidence that where most of the scar tissue in my tip and columella area was removed with cartilage, is now where i have neuropathy. My reason for mentioning this is so you are aware of this as a future patient, and that surgeons should be aware of this as well, and will hopefully make future patients aware of this as a possible side effect from the surgery, even though its remote. In fact I am not aware of anyone else with this condition, however i have read forums where a couple people mentioned they experienced nerve pain after surgery, but they never mentioned they required to be medicated with special medications like i take, or that they have a permanent condition.

What have I done for my neuropathic pain, besides taking medication?
I first had to do a lot of research. I discovered a site which i have linked on this blog, endthepain.org which is a great site about facial neuropathic pain.  The section about Trigeminal nerve pain explains how this pain works. It's atypical however in my case, i have pain on both sides of my nose. I've had CT Scan to rule out Trigeminal Condition caused by pressure on a nerve in the brain.  I have had temporary nerve blocks, at a pain clinic, i almost had radio pulsed frequency-sphenopalatine block done, but after the pain specialist  after many appointments told me that the freezing injection could cause permanent loss of sight, i backed down from going ahead with that procedure. In fact the pain clinic in my city never performed radio pulse frequency until i mentioned it to them that it has been used as a treatment elsewhere for facial neuropathic pain. I have had botox injection in my tip area's, cortisteroid Kenalog, and inside my nose a sphenopalatine and ethmoid freezing block. I've tried cold lidocaine ointment and gabapentin cream and hot cayenne ointment cream. None had worked. The injections may of worked temporarily, but even that was inconclusive.