Deviated Septum – Overview

Transcript

Deviated septum is a structure in your nose that essentially splits the nose into two sides. I think of a septum as a dividing wall. So if you have a room in your home and you want to make two rooms, you would call a contractor and put up a piece of sheet wall right in the middle. And if he’s a good contractor, he’ll measure appropriately, and that will be right in the middle. So that is your nasal septum. However, most people, when they’re born, their septum is not necessarily straight in the middle and it has a curve to it and ends up actually narrowing one side compared to the other. And so a deviated septum causes nasal obstruction. The airflow through the nose becomes constricted in one side or the other, because that dividing wall is not exactly in the middle of the nose.