Bleeding After FESS: What Light Bleeding Looks Like and When to Contact Your ENT Team

The first morning home, you tip your head to rinse a cup and a thin red line runs onto your lip. Your stomach drops. Nobody told you the nose would still be doing this, or maybe they did, in the recovery room, when you were too groggy to hold onto the words. You reach for a tissue and start counting.

Bleeding after FESS, short for functional endoscopic sinus surgery, is the single thing patients say they were least prepared for. Not the pain, which is usually milder than expected, but the sight of blood in a place you cannot see into and cannot easily press on. Most of what shows up in that first week is expected and tapers on its own.

The useful skill is not avoiding blood altogether. It is telling the difference between the ordinary ooze of healing tissue and the rarer pattern that deserves a phone call, and knowing what to do with your hands in the ten minutes before anyone picks up.

Why is there bleeding after FESS at all?

FESS is keyhole surgery inside the nose. An endoscope, a thin rigid telescope with a light and camera, is passed through the nostril so the surgeon can see the openings of the sinuses on a screen. There are no external cuts. Instead, fine instruments remove small pieces of bone and swollen lining, called mucosa, to widen the drainage channels that have been blocked by chronic inflammation or polyps.

That lining is the reason you bleed. Nasal mucosa is among the most blood-rich tissue in the body; it warms and humidifies every breath, and it does that with a dense network of tiny vessels sitting just under the surface. When inflamed tissue is trimmed, those vessels are opened. The surgeon controls the larger ones during the operation, but the raw surface left behind keeps weeping for days while a new layer of cells grows across it, in much the same way a scraped knee oozes before it dries.

Two other things add to the picture. Chronically inflamed tissue is more fragile and bleeds more readily than healthy tissue, which is why patients with long-standing polyps sometimes notice more ooze than those who had a smaller procedure. And because the nose drains backward as well as forward, some blood mixes with mucus and slides down the throat rather than appearing on a tissue, so what you swallow and what you see are two halves of the same process.

Patient information from Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins both describe some bleeding in the first days as an expected part of recovery rather than a complication. Understanding the mechanism helps: you are not watching a wound fail, you are watching a wet, vascular surface do what wet, vascular surfaces do while they heal.

What does normal light bleeding after FESS look like?

Picture a drip rather than a flow. In the first 24 to 72 hours, most people see mucus tinged pink or rust brown, occasional bright streaks when they gently dab the nostril, and a slow trickle when they bend over, sneeze or first stand up after lying down. A folded gauze taped under the nose, sometimes called a drip pad or moustache dressing, may need changing several times on the first day and far less often by the third.

Small clots are part of this. They tend to be dark, jelly-like and no bigger than a fingernail, and they often come out during a saline rinse once your team has said rinsing can begin. Their appearance can be alarming, but a clot that is already formed and leaving the nose is old blood, not new bleeding.

Timing matters as much as volume. Expected bleeding is worst on the day of surgery and the day after, then settles into intermittent spotting. A brief return of pink discharge after a rinse, after a hot shower, or on the day a splint or packing is removed is common and usually short-lived. The colour also drifts from bright red toward brown and then toward yellow-tinged mucus as crusts loosen.

What you should not expect is a change in direction: bleeding that was easing and then becomes steady and bright again, or bleeding that appears for the first time several days out and does not slow with pressure. That pattern is discussed in the section on when to call, because it is the one that occasionally reflects a vessel that has reopened rather than a surface that is healing.

Keep a loose mental log. How many pads today versus yesterday, whether the colour is lightening, whether pressure stops it within minutes. Those three observations answer most of the questions a nurse will ask you.

How much bleeding after FESS is too much? A quick comparison

Volume is hard to judge inside a nose, so it helps to compare behaviour rather than millilitres. The table below sets out the patterns clinicians tend to distinguish between. It is a guide for describing what you see, not a substitute for the instructions your own team gave you, which should always take priority.

Feature	Usually expected	Worth a same-day call	Emergency care now
Colour	Pink, rusty or brown mucus; occasional bright streaks	Persistently bright red	Bright red and continuous
Flow	Drips, spots, slow trickle on bending	Steady drip that continues at rest	Running stream, soaking through gauze in minutes
Response to pressure	Stops within a few minutes	Slows but restarts repeatedly	Does not slow after two rounds of firm pressure
Throat	Occasional metallic taste	Frequent swallowing of blood	Blood pouring down the throat, vomiting blood
Trend	Less each day	Same or more after day 3	Sudden heavy bleeding at any point
How you feel	Tired, blocked, mildly sore	Anxious but otherwise well	Faint, dizzy, sweaty, racing heart

The NHS advice for nosebleeds in general, which surgical teams broadly echo, is to seek urgent help if bleeding lasts longer than 10 to 15 minutes despite pressure, if the amount seems large, or if you are swallowing enough blood to make you vomit. After sinus surgery those thresholds still apply, with one addition: your team has usually given a direct number to call, and using it early is never the wrong choice.

Notice that the emergency column is defined by flow and by how you feel, not by the mere presence of blood. A frightening-looking tissue with a patient who feels fine belongs in a different category from a modest-looking trickle in someone who is light-headed.

FESS recovery time: what the first days and weeks usually look like

Recovery has a rhythm, and bleeding follows it. Cleveland Clinic patient information describes most people feeling well enough for desk-based work within about a week, with full healing of the nasal lining taking several weeks longer; the timeline below draws on that framing and on Johns Hopkins guidance. Your own pace may differ, and nothing here is a promise.

The first two days are the wettest. Expect a blocked nose, a dull ache across the cheeks or forehead, and pink drainage that needs a drip pad. Sleeping propped on two or three pillows reduces the throb and the overnight trickle, because raising the head lowers pressure in the vessels of the face.

Days three to seven bring the shift from blood to crust. Dried blood and mucus form scabs, medically called eschar, across the operated surfaces. Congestion can feel worse now than it did immediately after surgery, which surprises people. Saline rinses, once your team clears them, soften these crusts and often carry out dark clots along with old blood; a brief flush of pink after a rinse is typical in this window.

The first follow-up visit, commonly somewhere in the first one to two weeks, often involves the surgeon cleaning crusts and any remaining clots from the sinuses under endoscopic view. Light bleeding afterwards is routine and usually settles the same day.

Weeks two to six are about the lining growing back. Discharge turns yellowish and then clear, breathing opens, and sense of smell may begin to return if it was affected. Occasional blood-tinged mucus on rising can persist into this phase, particularly in dry air. By around six weeks most people are no longer thinking about their nose, though full mucosal maturation continues for months.

Throughout, the direction of travel is the reassuring signal: a little less each week, with brief blips after rinses or clinic cleaning, rather than a steady presence.

What can make bleeding after FESS heavier?

Some factors are physical. Anything that raises pressure in the head pushes more blood through freshly healed vessels: bending double to tie shoes, straining on the toilet, heavy lifting, vigorous exercise, and hard nose-blowing. Surgeons commonly ask patients to avoid blowing the nose entirely for a period after surgery and to sneeze with the mouth open, precisely because a closed-mouth sneeze can spike nasal pressure enough to pop a clot loose.

Heat is another. Hot showers, saunas, hot drinks and warm rooms dilate blood vessels in the face. Many teams suggest lukewarm rather than hot showers in the first days, and patients who notice a trickle after stepping out of the bathroom are seeing that mechanism at work. Dry air does the opposite kind of damage, cracking crusts before the tissue underneath is ready.

Then there are medicines and supplements that affect clotting. Antiplatelet drugs, anticoagulants, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers all reduce the blood’s ability to seal a small vessel, by different routes: some blunt the platelets that form the first plug, others interfere with the clotting cascade that reinforces it. Several herbal products and high-dose fish oil are thought to have milder effects of the same kind. None of this means these medicines are wrong for you; many people need them for heart or stroke protection. It means the timing of stopping and restarting them around surgery is a decision that belongs to the prescribing clinician and the surgical team together, and that you should follow the specific plan they gave you rather than any general rule.

Medical conditions matter too. High blood pressure that is poorly controlled, inherited clotting disorders, liver disease and low platelet counts all make bleeding more likely and are usually assessed before surgery. If any of these apply and you were not asked about them, mention it at your first follow-up.

Who is usually offered FESS, and who is usually asked to wait?

FESS is not a first step. Guidance summarised by Mayo Clinic and the NHS positions it as an option for chronic rhinosinusitis, meaning sinus inflammation lasting 12 weeks or more, when medical treatment has not adequately controlled symptoms. That medical treatment typically includes saline irrigation, intranasal corticosteroid sprays, and, depending on the picture, courses of other medicines chosen by the treating clinician. Surgery is also considered for nasal polyps that block breathing despite treatment, for recurrent acute infections, and for certain complications where infection threatens the eye or the lining of the brain.

The decision rests on symptoms plus imaging. A CT scan showing persistent disease in the sinuses, together with a patient whose daily life is genuinely limited, is the usual combination. Symptoms alone without scan findings, or scan findings in someone who feels fine, tend to prompt more conversation rather than an operation.

Some people are asked to wait. Anyone with an active cold or sinus flare is often rescheduled, because inflamed tissue bleeds more and heals less predictably. Those on blood thinners for a recent stent, valve or clot may be asked to delay until it is safe to adjust the medicine, or the operation may be planned with the medicine continued and extra precautions taken; that is a shared decision between cardiology or haematology and the ENT team. Uncontrolled blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes and current smoking are commonly addressed first, since each affects bleeding, infection risk and healing.

Children are considered on different criteria, with medical management and adenoid assessment usually preceding sinus surgery. And for everyone, the alternative of continued medical therapy remains on the table; FESS aims to open drainage so that medicines work better, not to replace them. Many patients continue steroid sprays and rinses long after the operation, and that ongoing care is part of what makes the surgery worthwhile.

Nosebleed after sinus surgery: what to do at home in the first ten minutes

Sit down. Lie back and you will swallow blood and feel sick; sit upright and lean slightly forward so it runs out of the nostril rather than down the throat. This single change in posture is the piece most people get wrong in the panic of the moment.

Then apply pressure in the right place. Pinch the soft, fleshy part of the nose just below the bony bridge, firmly, between thumb and forefinger, and hold without peeking for the full period your team advised. The NHS nosebleed guidance uses 10 to 15 minutes of continuous pressure as the standard, and many surgical teams give the same figure. Checking early releases the pressure just as a clot is forming. Breathe through your mouth and let any blood in the throat drip out rather than swallowing it.

Cold helps. An ice pack or bag of frozen peas wrapped in a cloth, held against the bridge of the nose or the back of the neck, narrows local vessels. Some teams provide or suggest a decongestant spray for exactly this situation, because the medicine constricts the small vessels of the lining; whether and how to use one after your particular surgery is for your team to say, since these sprays are not suitable for everyone and are not meant for routine repeated use.

Do not pack the nostril with tissue or cotton yourself. Pulling it out later can tear the fresh clot and restart the bleed, and fibres can lodge in the operated sinus.

Once bleeding stops, stay quiet for the rest of the day. No bending, no lifting, no hot drinks for a few hours, no nose-blowing. If the same episode happens twice in a day, or pressure does not work within the advised time, that is the point to call rather than to try a third round.

Do nasal packing and splints change what bleeding looks like?

Not every FESS involves packing, and the trend in many centres has moved away from routine firm packing toward either nothing at all or soft, dissolvable materials. Knowing which you had explains a great deal about your first week.

Packing is any material placed in the nasal cavity at the end of surgery to press gently on raw surfaces and absorb ooze. Dissolvable packs are gels or sponges that soften and either drain out with rinses or are absorbed. While they are in place they can look like thick, coloured discharge, and as they break down over days the mixture of pack, mucus and old blood can be brown, stringy and alarming without being new bleeding. Non-dissolvable packs are removed in clinic; a short burst of fresh bleeding on removal is common and usually stops within minutes with pressure.

Splints are thin plastic sheets stitched inside the nose, usually when a septoplasty has been done alongside FESS, to hold the septum, the wall between the nostrils, straight while it heals. They can make the nose feel fully blocked and produce more crusting around their edges. Their removal at follow-up is a common moment for a brief bleed, and teams typically plan for it.

Neither packing nor splints prevent all bleeding, and their presence can mask the amount. Blood that would otherwise drip forward may instead run backward into the throat, so a metallic taste and dark stools for a day or two can follow. If, however, blood is running freely around a pack, or a pack seems to be shifting toward the back of the throat, contact your team promptly; a dislodged pack is uncomfortable and occasionally a choking risk, and it should be dealt with by someone who can see what they are doing.

Is it bleeding, or is it something else? Crusts, old blood and infection after sinus surgery

A good deal of what looks like bleeding in week two is not. As the lining heals, dried blood and mucus form crusts, and when those crusts loosen they release dark, sometimes foul-smelling debris. Brown or black flecks in a saline rinse are almost always old blood being cleared, not a fresh source.

Infection after sinus surgery is uncommon but worth understanding, because it can be mistaken for, or coincide with, bleeding. The operated sinuses are briefly an open, raw space where bacteria that normally live in the nose can multiply, especially if crusts trap mucus behind them. The typical warning signs are a change in the character of discharge to thick yellow-green with an unpleasant smell that persists after rinsing, increasing facial pain or pressure after an initial improvement, and fever. Bleeding alone, without those features, does not indicate infection.

Two rarer things deserve a sentence each, not to alarm but because knowing them removes the guesswork. A clear, watery, salty-tasting drip from one nostril that increases when leaning forward and does not thicken like mucus can, very rarely, represent leakage of cerebrospinal fluid, the fluid that surrounds the brain, through a small breach in the thin bone at the roof of the sinuses. Second, swelling, bruising or pain around one eye, double vision, or any change in sight after sinus surgery is treated as urgent, because the eye socket sits beside the sinuses behind a paper-thin wall. Both are recognised, infrequent risks of the procedure, discussed in consent, and both are reasons to contact your team the same day rather than to wait for a routine appointment.

Everything else in this category, the crusts, the smell that clears with rinsing, the colour changes, is the ordinary landscape of a healing nose. Rinsing gently and consistently, as directed, is the single habit that keeps it that way.

What are the other sinus surgery side effects people ask about?

Bleeding tops the list, but the questions that follow it are remarkably consistent. Pain is usually described as pressure or a dull ache rather than sharp pain, and most people manage with the plan their team provided. Fatigue is under-appreciated; a general anaesthetic plus a blocked nose plus broken sleep leaves many patients more tired in week one than they expected.

Smell and taste often change temporarily. Swelling blocks odour molecules from reaching the receptors high in the nose, so food tastes flat for a while. Recovery of smell is common but not guaranteed, and for people whose smell was already impaired by polyps, the outcome varies; your surgeon can speak to your specific situation.

Can sinus surgery cause nerve damage? Rarely, and the honest answer is more nuanced than yes or no. The sinuses sit near several important structures: the optic nerve behind the sphenoid sinus, the nerves that move the eye within the orbit, and the branches that supply sensation to the cheek and upper teeth. Serious injury to these is uncommon in modern endoscopic surgery with image guidance, and surgeons discuss it during consent because it is serious rather than because it is likely. Far more common, and usually temporary, are numbness or tingling of the upper front teeth or cheek from stretched sensory branches, and reduced smell from swelling rather than nerve injury.

Scar tissue, called synechiae, can form between healing surfaces and occasionally narrows a drainage channel again; routine clinic cleaning is partly aimed at preventing this. Some people notice a temporary change in voice resonance as the nasal airway opens. And, over the longer term, chronic rhinosinusitis is a condition that is managed rather than eliminated, so symptoms can return and ongoing medical care remains part of the picture for many.

Does having septoplasty with FESS change the bleeding picture?

Often, yes, and in a predictable way. Septoplasty straightens a deviated septum, the cartilage and bone wall dividing the nostrils, so that the surgeon can reach the sinuses and so that airflow improves afterwards. It is frequently done in the same session as FESS, and it adds a second set of healing surfaces to the nose.

The septal lining is lifted off the cartilage during the operation and laid back down at the end. Blood can pool between the lining and the cartilage, forming a septal haematoma. Splints or quilting stitches are used to prevent this, and it is one reason splints are common after combined procedures. A haematoma shows up as worsening blockage on both sides, a sensation of fullness at the front of the nose, and sometimes pain out of proportion to expectations, rather than as visible bleeding. It needs prompt assessment because untreated it can damage cartilage.

How long does it take to recover from septoplasty and FESS together? Broadly the same arc as FESS alone, with a little more front-of-nose swelling and tenderness, and the added milestone of splint removal at the first follow-up. Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins patient guidance both describe a week or so before most people feel ready for normal light activity and several weeks before the nose feels settled; individual timelines vary and depend on how much was done.

The practical differences for bleeding are minor. Expect a brief bleed at splint removal, expect the septal area to feel bruised, and follow the same pressure-and-posture routine if a trickle starts. The thresholds for calling do not change: continuous bright red flow, failure to respond to pressure, or feeling faint are the same red flags whether one procedure or two was performed.

What people often get wrong about bleeding after FESS

The first misconception is that any blood means something has gone wrong. It rarely does. The nose is a raw, wet surface for days, and ooze is the expected result. Panic tends to raise blood pressure, which makes the trickle briefly worse, which confirms the panic; sitting down and pressing calmly breaks that loop more effectively than anything else.

The second is the reverse: that because bleeding is normal, no amount needs reporting. A steady stream that soaks gauze in minutes, or a bleed that will not stop with proper pressure, is a different event from spotting, and it warrants a call every time. Both extremes are wrong; the middle path is to watch pattern and trend.

Third, people lean back. Tilting the head backward feels instinctive and looks like it stops the bleeding, but it simply redirects blood down the throat, where it causes nausea and hides the true volume. Forward, not back.

Fourth, many assume more rinsing will wash the blood away faster. Gentle saline rinsing, once cleared by the team, is helpful, but forceful rinsing or high-pressure devices can dislodge clots and restart bleeding. Follow the technique and frequency you were given.

Fifth, there is a belief that stopping every medicine that could thin the blood is automatically safer. For someone with a recent stent or a history of clots, stopping an anticoagulant without a plan carries its own serious risks. The safe approach is the specific instruction from the prescribing clinician and surgical team, not a general rule from a forum.

Finally, some patients treat dark clots in the rinse basin as fresh haemorrhage. Dark, jelly-like material is old; new bleeding is bright and flows. Learning to read that difference removes a great deal of unnecessary worry in week two.

Questions to ask your care team before you go home

The most useful conversation about bleeding happens before discharge, when you can still ask follow-up questions. Write the answers down; the details fade quickly after anaesthesia.

Ask what was actually done. Which sinuses were opened, whether a septoplasty or turbinate reduction was included, and whether packing or splints were placed and of what type. This tells you what to expect in terms of crusting, blockage and the moments when a brief bleed is likely.

Ask what amount and duration of bleeding this particular team considers normal for this particular operation, and at what point they want to hear from you. Thresholds vary slightly between surgeons; yours are the ones that count.

Ask for the direct number to call, both in office hours and out of hours, and what to do if you cannot get through. Ask whether the emergency department nearest home is the right destination if bleeding is heavy, and whether you should bring anything with you.

Ask exactly how to do pressure and posture, and whether they want you to use any spray for a bleed. Ask when saline rinsing should start, which device or technique, and how often.

Ask about every medicine and supplement you take, by name: which to hold, which to continue, and when each restarts. If you take an anticoagulant or antiplatelet drug, ask whether the plan has been agreed with the clinician who prescribes it.

Ask about activity: when bending, lifting, exercise, flying and hot showers are reasonable again, and when nose-blowing can resume.

And ask what the first follow-up will involve, so that clinic cleaning and the small bleed that can follow it do not come as a surprise. A team that welcomes these questions is doing its job; a patient who asks them is doing theirs.

When to call your doctor

Call your ENT team the same day, or go to an emergency department if you cannot reach them, for any of the following. Bright red bleeding that runs continuously or soaks through a gauze pad within minutes. Bleeding that does not slow after two rounds of firm pressure on the soft part of the nose for the time your team advised, or 10 to 15 minutes each if you were given no specific figure, in line with NHS nosebleed guidance. Blood pouring down the back of the throat, or vomiting blood. Feeling faint, dizzy, sweaty or short of breath, or a racing heartbeat alongside any bleeding; these suggest the amount lost is significant even if what you can see seems modest.

Contact the team the same day, though not necessarily as an emergency, if bleeding that had been improving becomes steady again after day three, if you are changing pads as often on day four as on day one, or if a bleed recurs more than once in a day.

Separately from bleeding, seek urgent assessment for any swelling, bruising or pain around one eye, double vision or reduced vision; a clear, watery, salty drip from one nostril that persists; severe headache with a stiff neck or sensitivity to light; fever with worsening facial pain or foul discharge; a pack or splint that has shifted toward the throat; or increasing blockage at the front of the nose with pain after septoplasty.

None of these should be assessed over the internet or waited out overnight. Your surgical team expects these calls, and the endoscope that made the operation possible also makes it straightforward for them to look, find a bleeding point if there is one, and deal with it. When in doubt, ring. The decision about what happens next always belongs to the clinicians who know your nose.

Frequently asked questions

How long does bleeding after FESS usually last?

Most visible bleeding settles within the first few days, tapering from pink drainage on the day of surgery to occasional spotting by the end of the first week, according to Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins patient guidance. Blood-tinged mucus on waking or after rinses can persist into the second and third week as crusts loosen. Bleeding that is steady or increasing after day three should be reported to your team.

What is the fess recovery time for returning to work and exercise?

Cleveland Clinic patient information describes most people returning to desk-based work in about a week, with full healing of the nasal lining taking several weeks. Strenuous exercise, heavy lifting and bending are usually restricted for longer because they raise pressure in nasal vessels and can trigger bleeding. Your surgeon sets the timeline based on what was done, so follow the specific instructions you were given.

What are the potential side effects of FESS surgery?

Common effects include light bleeding, congestion, crusting, facial pressure, fatigue and temporary changes in smell and taste. Less common problems include infection, scar tissue narrowing a drainage channel, and septal haematoma when septoplasty is combined. Rare but serious risks, discussed at consent, involve the eye socket and the thin bone beneath the brain, including cerebrospinal fluid leak. Your team will explain how these apply to your specific operation.

What causes infection after sinus surgery?

The operated sinuses are briefly a raw surface where bacteria normally present in the nose can multiply, particularly if crusts trap mucus behind them. Poor rinsing technique, smoking, uncontrolled diabetes and pre-existing infection at the time of surgery all raise the risk. Signs include thick, foul-smelling discharge that persists after rinsing, worsening facial pain after initial improvement, and fever. Bleeding alone does not indicate infection.

Can sinus surgery cause nerve damage?

Serious nerve injury is rare in modern endoscopic sinus surgery, though surgeons discuss it because the optic nerve and the nerves controlling eye movement sit close to the sinuses. Far more common, and usually temporary, are numbness or tingling of the upper teeth or cheek from stretched sensory branches, and reduced smell caused by swelling rather than nerve injury. Persistent changes should be raised with your surgeon.

How long does it take to recover from septoplasty and FESS together?

The overall arc mirrors FESS alone, with added front-of-nose swelling, tenderness, and splints that are typically removed at the first follow-up. Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins guidance describes roughly a week before most people resume light normal activity and several weeks before the nose feels settled. Timelines vary with the extent of surgery, so treat these as typical ranges rather than expectations.

Is a nosebleed after sinus surgery an emergency?

Light spotting and short trickles that stop with pressure are expected and not emergencies. A nosebleed becomes urgent when bright red blood flows continuously, soaks gauze within minutes, does not slow after two rounds of firm pressure for 10 to 15 minutes each, runs freely down the throat, or is accompanied by faintness or a racing heart. In those situations contact your ENT team immediately or go to emergency care.

Should I stop my blood thinner if I am bleeding after FESS?

No, not without speaking to your team. Anticoagulants and antiplatelet medicines protect against clots, strokes and heart attacks, and stopping them abruptly carries serious risks of its own. Apply pressure, sit forward, and call your ENT team, who will coordinate with the prescribing clinician if any change is needed. Follow the specific medicine plan you were given before surgery rather than general advice.

Why do I see blood after saline rinsing?

Rinsing softens and dislodges crusts made of dried blood and mucus, so the rinse basin often turns pink or shows dark clots for a few weeks. This is old blood being cleared and is expected. A brief flush of bright pink that stops within minutes is also common. Forceful or high-pressure rinsing can restart genuine bleeding, so use the gentle technique and frequency your team advised.

What sinus surgery side effects should improve, and which should I report?

Congestion, crusting, mild facial pressure, fatigue and dulled smell typically improve week by week. Report anything moving the other way: bleeding that increases after day three, discharge that becomes thick, foul and persistent, fever, worsening pain, swelling or vision change around an eye, a clear watery one-sided drip, or increasing blockage at the front of the nose after septoplasty. Your team would rather hear early than late.

References

• Cleveland Clinic: Sinus Surgery
• NHS: Nosebleed
• MedlinePlus: Sinusitis

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.