Wondering about cause of dryness
Hi all, I was wondering about what the cause of the dryness in the nose is? Is it the turbinates themselves which produce mucous and with those partially or fully removed then there is less mucous production? Or is it the fact that the nasa passage is more open that causes the dryness? Secondly, if it is the actual turbinate that makes snot then how does an implant help with dryness?

The turbinates are the main mucus producing tissue in the nose. They also trap 75% of the returning moisture from the lungs upon expiration. Another function is that they limit the amount of air that can travel through the nose at any given time and make it flow through certain designated areas only, in such a way which allows the rest of the mucosa to not get stripped of the moisture that covers it. The more turbinate tissue missing the less mucus production you have. Less moisture from you breath remains in your nose and the incoming air overwhelms the over exposed mucosa and strips it from what ever moisture is left. The implants cannot replace the loss of mucus producing tissues such as the turbinates, but they can compensate for the two other problems: they help trap more of the returning moisture and they limit the airflow again and re-direct it to a closer to normal state, preventing the stripping away of the remaining moisture and allowing more efficient and less aggressive air to surface (mucosa) transduction of heat, filtration, and humidity. By doing so they also help preserve the high temperature of the nasal cavity which is vital for mucus and moisture production. So 2 out of 3, is not too bad. (In a way, one can say that the implants also increase the mucus production in the empty nose, by improving the over all condition of the entire remaining mucosal tissues, including the remaining turbinates. I estimate that a perfect implant can replace about 75% of the function of a natural turbinate, but the actual subjective improvement in how the patient feels might be even higher. The problem is reaching the perfect implant. Fabricating what nature designed is a very difficult task. Still, any sort of implant, far less than perfect in shape, providing it's done in the proper location and in an appropriate size, will significantly help too).

Awesome TE, you rocK!!!! Thanks