REVIEWS OF "HAVING NASAL SURGERY? DON'T YOU BECOME AN EMPTY NOSE VICTIM!"
"I learned a lot from this book when I first started researching breathing years ago, and continue to refer to it today. Chris does a great job describing the wonders of the underappreciated and underresearched organ called the nose, and also the horrors of what happens when you lose the ability to breathe properly in and out of it. A detailed and engrossing primer for anyone interested in ENS."--James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
"Chris Martin's book is a must-read for anyone with nasal problems so they, too, can understand ENS and avoid becoming an ENS patient. His up-to-date information can empower the patient to best therapies...ENS is preventable and this book will go a long way to that prevention. " --Murray Grossan, M.D., author of The Sinus Cure and inventor of the Grossan Hydro Pulse® Nasal-Sinus Irrigation System
"I applaud Chris' attempt to bring this critically important issue to the public's attention. If one person can be saved from the devastation this surgery can cause, he will have performed a great service."--Wellington S. Tichenor, M.D., Creator of award-winning website www.sinuses.com, and wrote the introduction for this book
"Chris is addressing a tremendously important issue in otolaryngology. Empty nose syndrome is a real entity that requires further investigation. Although Chris' book is written for the general public, I truly hope my colleagues in ENT will read this book and take it to heart."--Steven M. Houser, M.D., ENT specialist, MetroHealth Medical Center and Cleveland Nasal, Sinus and Sleep Center, assistant professor, Case Western Reserve University, and wrote the foreword for this book
"An ideal sourcebook on ENS...All nasal doctors should have on their shelves and be ready to pass onto patients." -- Les Chappell of BookReview.com
"His personal disclosures make the book very interesting...I cannot imagine a more comprehensive, yet easy-to-understand source of information." -- Paige Lovitt of Reader Views
"Stop reading this review and start reading this book! It could save your life." -- Ryan Webb of Ontario, Canada
"This is a must-read for anyone who has had or is considering sinus surgery...I can't recommend this book enough. I think it should be required reading for all those practicing ENT's that perform sinus surgery." -- Tom on amazon.com
"This was an extremely informative book that's a must to read before you get the surgery." --Cathy on amazon.com
"This is a comprehensive book about sinus surgery and empty nose syndrome for the general public. ENS is a poorly understood real complication of sinus surgery. This book provides a good explanation of ENS and its treatments." --Peggy on amazon.com
"This is undoubtedly one of the most important issues facing the medical community today. The impact of this book is already far reaching and I am confident we will soon see a real turn-around in the ENT community in regards to these issue. Point of fact: I just spoke to an Australian ENT, returned from training with the ex-president of the US Facial and Cosmetic Surgery Association who now agrees with the basic principals behind this book and "would not perform a partial inferior turbinate resection on a member of my family." And I was about to let my regular ENT perform an 80% resection!... until I saw this book."--Bard on amazon.com
"An excellent resource on ENS is a book by Christopher Martin.". Dr. Steven Park , Albert Einstein College of Medicine and author of Sleep, Interrupted
"Also of significant help is the book, "Having Nasal Surgery? Don't You Become An Empty Nose Victim!" by Christopher Martin." - myrenoent.com
JIM COX, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
(http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/oct_07.htm#heal)
The nose is an organ of the human body that can be afflicted with a number of serious ailments to health. These problems include such conditions as rhinosinusitis, allergic rhinitis, and empty nose syndrome (ENS). It has only been in recent years that physicians have come to understand and treat ENS. But there are still a great many doctors unfamiliar with this syndrome and the treatment options that sufferers have to choose from. An ENS sufferer himself, Christopher Martin has written a comprehensive and thoroughly 'reader friendly' introduction to what ENS is, what can be done about it, and what to be aware of in various treatment options in Having Nasal Surgery? Don't You Become An Empty Nose Victim! Christopher relates his own personal account of coping with ENS, offers an informed and informative evaluation of turbinate surgeries with respect to nasal conditions, provides an 'insider' look at the politics surrounding ENS within the medical community, and identifies the best treatments for ENS, many of which are also efficaciously applicable to sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, postnasal drip, GERD, and asthma. Invaluable reading for medical students, physicians, and non-specialist general readers, Having Nasal Surgery? is especially recommended for personal, professional, and community library Health & Medicine reference collections and reading lists.
KIRKUS INDIE
(https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/christopher-martin/having-nasal-surgery/)
School psychologist Martin explores a little-known condition that has lifelong detrimental effects.
In direct, instructive language, Martin examines the devastation of Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS), a term coined by a Mayo Clinic physician in 1994. ENS is characterized by a “cluster of symptoms” that occur after too much of the airflow-regulating bony structures in the nasal cavity called turbinates are surgically removed, usually from efforts to assuage sinus pressure, headaches or nasal stuffiness (“turbinate reduction” surgery). The author believes that post-surgery, people with ENS go on to experience a wide array of harrowing symptoms including nasal dryness, sleep disturbances, excessive mucus, nosebleeds, diminished sense of smell and fatigue. Martin became an ENS sufferer after an overly aggressive partial turbinectomy performed in his late teens to improve a chronic nasal inflammatory condition. But before his ENS diagnosis, Martin endured numerous allergy injections, CAT scans, bacterial infections and the possibility of additional surgery. Determined to find answers, the author channeled his disillusionment, anger and psychological distress into increasing awareness about the condition and by positively dedicating (and educating) himself on the possibly devastating side-effects of nasal surgery. His comprehensive research has produced illustrations, tips, charts, glossaries and case studies about ENS, all presented in a straightforward manner, making the information more accessible to average readers with limited medical knowledge or experience. Martin smartly counterbalances the negative experiences (and clinical politics) of ENS with a host of beneficial natural remedies (chicken soup, humidifier, etc.), non-surgical options, as well as a chapter on the author’s own approach after suffering the debilitating effects of ENS. He had enlisted an ear, nose and throat physician to attach two restorative implants inside his nasal cavities, a procedure he advocates as beneficial in improving his own quality of life.
This slim but potent book is tremendously important and informative not only for those considering nasal surgeries, but for the specialists who perform them.
CLARION REVIEW
(https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/having-nasal-surgery/)
In July 1997 shortly before going away to college Chris Martin underwent surgery to remove turbinate tissue from both sides of his nose. An ENT doctor had recommended the procedure called a bilateral turbinectomy to relieve the chronic stuffiness the young man had been experiencing as a result of allergies and sinus infections. In the weeks and months that followed Martin realized that the surgery had not helped him. The cycle of sinus infections had not only continued but had intensified. His nose was perpetually dry his throat sore his mucous membranes inflamed. Before long he was also experiencing panic-inducing shortness of breath disturbed sleep and intolerance to cold air. He became anxious and concerned. His discomfort led him back to ENT specialists and almost into another surgery until by accident in 2003 he discovered a Web site that defined “empty nose syndrome.” He now knew that his problem has a name: ENS. Its cause is summed up by Dr. W.S. Tichenor a New York City sinusitis specialist: “Too many surgeons today believe they can indiscriminately remove large amounts of turbinate tissue.” Martin and his fellow ENS sufferers are the unhappy victims of these surgeries.
For the past four years Chris Martin has been learning how to live with ENS. With this book he has fulfilled a major step in his mission to help educate sinus allergy and post-nasal drip victims who are considering surgery as well as ENS sufferers and ENT professionals and plastic surgeons many of whom have not been exposed to the scant literature about the syndrome. In August 2006 Martin met Dr. Steven Houser an ENT specialist in Cleveland Ohio who has been treating ENS sufferers—at times by rebuilding the remains of their turbinate tissue. Dr. Houser has performed two implant surgeries on Martin in order to decrease the nasal airway volume. The lesser amount of air entering the nose results in more resistance to airflow thus less dryness. A second important effect of Dr. Houser’s implants has been to partially restore the pulmonary functioning that was impaired by the “empty” or too-open nasal passages.
Martin now a family man and school psychologist in his late twenties in upstate New York writes not as a doctor but as a survivor. He presents here a working definition of ENS and a primer on surgical as well as other medical dietary and environmental ways to treat its symptoms. He includes a layman’s guide to turbinate functioning and to the science and politics of turbinate surgery. Having learned to manage his condition he tells a compelling personal story that adds passion and authority to his presentation. Martin grants as his research shows that “conservative” turbinate surgery can often alleviate chronic stuffiness but his presentation implicates the many doctors and plastic surgeons who continue to remove excessive amounts of turbinate.