Oregon Careers in Healthcare

A broken nose is perhaps one of the most painful bodily harm experiences you may have to go through and is quite common nose accidents. This often happens in contact sports such as martial arts, football, and hockey.

In such instances, the sudden impact to your nose results in a nasal fracture as they are also called and is characterized by a clean break or crack on the nasal cartilage that separates your nostrils called septum or over the bridge of the nose.

Detection is usually quite simple and may surprisingly not require the use of complex machinery such as an X-ray. For example, a bent or crooked nose is a definite sign of a broken nose, this is in addition to a swollen nose, excessive bleeding or a stuffy nose that is indicative of blocked nasal passages and an inability to breathe correctly.

Appearance and difficulty in breathing are all you need for accurate diagnosis.

Types of Treatment For A Broken Nose

Once it’s established that indeed a nose is broken, treatment can take either of two forms. For starters, if it’s a realignment where the break has displaced the cartilage, a doctor may proceed to do this manually provided it’s within 14 days from the period the accident took place. But preferably sooner.

That said, there is absolutely no logical reason why a broken nose should be left unattended for so long.

During this process, the doctor will provide medication to ease the pain and use special instruments to align the broken bone or cartilage. You should also expect your nose to be splint using packing inside and a dressing applied on the outside.

Additionally, your nose being a host to a plethora of bacteria, a prescription of antibiotics will suffice to mitigate any bacterial infections.  Secondly, you can treat a broken nose through rhinoplasty which is another word for nasal surgery. This is mostly used when you have multiple breaks or severe damage to the nasal bone and cartilage.

The type of treatment is therefore determined by the severity of the injury and should in both cases be managed by a doctor.