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- What are nasal polyps?
- Symptoms of nasal polyps
- Causes of nasal polyps
- Prevention of nasal polyps
- Risk factors for nasal polyps
- Complications of nasal polyps
- When to see a doctor about nasal polyps
- Diagnosis of nasal polyps
- Conventional treatment of nasal polyps
- Alternative/complementary treatment of nasal polyps
- Living with nasal polyps
- Caring for someone with nasal polyps
Conventional treatment of nasal polyps
Conventional treatment of nasal polyps is based on the severity of symptoms, the underlying cause and whether or not they are obstructing breathing and therefore must be removed.
Allergy desensitisation
This is the first line of treatment that is recommend for people with allergic rhinitis (hay fever). Allergy desensitisation therapy may help some people to reduce their allergic response to their triggers, reduce inflammation and this will help to reduce severity of symptoms. This means, allergy desensitisation may then help to decrease the size of the nasal polyps that exist and prevent further ones from growing if the inflammation in the nose is greatly reduced.
Corticosteroid nasal spray
The steroids in these medications reduce inflammation, slow the growth of the polyps and reduce their size to enable better airflow (and breathing) through the nasal passage and are often recommended to be taken long term to prevent the sinus infection and recurrence of nasal polyp growths. These medications have some side effects, but are not as severe as the corticosteroid tablets as they are not absorbed into the body in the same way as the corticosteroid tablets are, so are better tolerated by most people. Examples are: Aldecin, Rhinocort, Nasonex
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Corticosteroid medication
Cortisone medications are used to reduce the inflammation in the nasal passages which helps to shrink the nasal polyps, but they cannot be taken long-term as they cause many side-effects. Examples are: Prednisolone, Prednisone.
Nasal decongestants
These type of medications are recommended instead of the corticosteroid nasal sprays in people with mild symptoms or those people who cannot tolerate the corticosteroid medication in those nasal sprays. These nasal sprays inhibit the release of histamine so to prevent an allergic reaction which ultimately reduces inflammation and this can inhibit growth of nasal polyps. The only side effect this type of nasal spray has, is slight irritation to the nasal passages after it has been sprayed. Examples are: Nasalcrom, Opticrom, Tilade
Surgery
Surgery is recommended only as a last resort and only if the nasal polyps are greatly restricting breathing.
The nasal polyps can be removed by surgery, but they tend to grow back in about 50% of patients, so surgery is used as a very last resort, because the its success rate is not great. Surgery does not have a high success rate because the condition that caused the nasal polyps to grow in the first place is chronic in those people and the symptoms will continue to occur, so the polyps will unfortunately grow again.
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