Empty Nose Syndrome: Surgery-Induced Respiratory Dysfunction & Dysautonomia

11/10/2026

🚨 Considering Nasal Surgery? Watch This Documentary Before You Decide. 🚨

🎬 SHATTERED TRUST – THE UNTOLD STORY OF EMPTY NOSE SYNDROME

The complete 1-hour and 25-minute investigative documentary is now available!

Every year, people undergo nasal surgery believing it will improve their breathing. But for some, the consequences are devastating and irreversible.

What happens when surgery intended to improve breathing leaves a person struggling to feel airflow, sleep normally, or breathe comfortably?

Shattered Trust investigates the hidden risks of nasal surgery, particularly turbinate reduction, and the devastating condition known as Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS).

Through powerful patient testimonies, medical expert analysis, and scientific research, the documentary explores:

🔴 The devastating physical and psychological consequences of ENS.

🔴 How nasal surgery can disrupt normal airflow sensation and breathing.

🔴 The importance of informed consent and why patients need to understand the risks before surgery.

🔴 The lifelong struggles faced by people living with ENS.

🔴 Questions surrounding medical responsibility, financial incentives, and patient safety.

Why I Made This Film

In 2014, I underwent nasal surgery that changed my life forever.

At the time, information about Empty Nose Syndrome was extremely difficult to find, particularly in my native language. Had a documentary like this existed before my operation, it could have changed everything.

After two years of relentless work, I have finally completed Shattered Trust.

This film is my contribution to raising awareness, helping patients understand the risks, and preventing others from experiencing the same suffering.

Who Should Watch It?

✅ Anyone considering turbinate reduction, septoplasty, or other nasal surgery.

✅ Patients already suffering from Empty Nose Syndrome.

✅ Family members who want to understand what their loved ones are going through.

✅ Medical professionals interested in the long-term consequences of nasal surgery.

🎥 WATCH THE COMPLETE DOCUMENTARY ON PATREON

The full 85-minute film is available for purchase. Your support helps recover the substantial production costs and makes this independent awareness project possible.

The purchase also includes additional information about ENS, including a resource with contact details for physicians familiar with the condition.

👉 https://www.patreon.com/Ensinfo/shop/shattered-trust-untold-story-of-empty-1193279

If Patreon checkout does not work inside Facebook, open the link in Safari, Chrome, or another external browser.

This is more than a documentary. It is a warning, an investigation, and a voice for those who have suffered in silence.

One operation can change a life forever. Understanding the risks before surgery matters.

Will you take a breath… and watch?

Check out ENS Awareness Project’s shop on Patreon

05/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome After Turbinate Surgery: Sarah Ogden’s Story

Sarah J. Ogden was only 22 years old when her life came to an end in 2017. Her name is still remembered within the Empty Nose Syndrome community.

This video tells Sarah’s story and explains the condition that became part of her life: Empty Nose Syndrome, or ENS.

The nasal turbinates are not simply obstacles to airflow. They are living, vascular and sensory structures that help regulate airflow, create resistance, condition the air and contribute to the sensation of normal breathing.

When too much turbinate tissue is reduced or removed, the nasal airway can become larger while breathing can feel dramatically worse. A person may have an open nose and still experience dryness, burning, abnormal airflow, loss of normal airflow sensation and a profound feeling of suffocation.

According to accounts preserved within the ENS community, Sarah underwent reconstructive treatment with AlloDerm and later two implant procedures in an attempt to regain normal breathing. Her official obituary does not state the circumstances of her death, but surviving ENS community accounts say that Sarah ultimately ended her own life after years of suffering.

Her story is not simply about one surgical technique or one treatment outcome. It is a reminder that an open nose is not necessarily a functioning nose, and that nasal surgery involving the turbinates deserves great caution.

For those of us living with Empty Nose Syndrome, Sarah’s story is part of our story too.

Learn more about Empty Nose Syndrome:

https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com

04/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome After Turbinate Surgery – The Story of WWII Pilot Jack Ackland

Jack Ackland was a young pilot who wanted to continue flying. During the Second World War, he underwent extensive nasal surgery after suffering from severe sinus problems at altitude.

The surgery included resection of turbinate tissue. Instead of restoring his ability to fly, it was followed by years of pain, illness, disability and profound physical and psychological suffering.

Decades later, after reviewing Jack’s medical history, ENT professor Dr. Robert M. Meyers told Jack’s son, journalist Len Ackland, that his father’s postoperative condition would today be described as Empty Nose Syndrome.

This episode tells Jack’s story and examines why the turbinates are far more than structures that simply warm and humidify air. They help regulate nasal resistance, airflow, breathing sensation and ventilation. When these functions are permanently damaged, a nose may appear open while breathing can become profoundly abnormal.

More than eighty years after Jack’s operations, turbinate reduction and resection are still performed. His story remains relevant to patients living with Empty Nose Syndrome today.

Learn more about Empty Nose Syndrome, research, physiology and patient experiences:

https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/

03/10/2026

This episode tells the story of Stéphane Spinhirny and the devastating consequences of nasal surgery and Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS).

It explores his severe breathing difficulties, his struggle to obtain recognition and appropriate help, and why his experience remains important to discussions about turbinate surgery, informed consent and patient safety.

Read Stéphane Spinhirny’s full story and view the supporting material:

https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-story-of-stephane-spinhirny.html

This podcast is intended to raise awareness and provide information about Empty Nose Syndrome.

03/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS): The Story of Sam Treffry After Nasal Surgery

This episode tells the story of Sam Treffry, a 34-year-old man from Australia who was diagnosed with Empty Nose Syndrome after undergoing several nasal procedures earlier in life.
Told through the public account shared by his brother, Beau Treffry, the episode follows Sam’s struggle with severe sleep and breathing problems, his withdrawal from university and work, and the suffering his family only fully understood after Sam ended his own life in October 2024.

The episode also explores what Empty Nose Syndrome can do to breathing: how the turbinates help regulate nasal resistance and airflow, condition inhaled air, and provide sensory feedback to the nervous system — and why a physically open nasal airway does not necessarily mean normal breathing.

Sam’s brother also shared a treasured memory from 2013, when the two rowed through Wolli Creek, navigated the mangroves, played chess and explored an island together.
Read Sam Treffry’s full story and more information here:

https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/2024/10/empty-nose-syndrome-sam-treffry-fifth.html

03/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome, or ENS, is a devastating condition that can develop after turbinate reduction and other nasal surgery. A person may have an airway that appears unusually open—yet experience constant suffocation, severe dryness, pain and an inability to feel normal airflow.

The turbinates are not merely structures that warm and humidify air. They are dynamic, vascular and richly innervated respiratory organs. They regulate airflow and nasal resistance and provide sensory feedback that helps the brain register each breath.

This episode tells the story of John Malamos, an active and deeply valued man whose life changed after revision rhinoplasty and reduction of his inferior turbinates.

According to his family, John believed that he had agreed only to correction of his previous cosmetic surgery. He had not been properly informed about the risks of reducing the turbinates.

After the operation, John developed severe symptoms associated with Empty Nose Syndrome. He travelled hundreds of miles searching for help and was eventually diagnosed with ENS, but no effective treatment was offered. In 2010, at the age of 43, after prolonged physical suffering and complete despair, John ended his own life.

John’s experience was not an isolated event. Other patients have described devastating outcomes after turbinate surgery while the seriousness of Empty Nose Syndrome continues to be minimized or denied.

Learn more about Empty Nose Syndrome, turbinate reduction risks, research and documented patient stories:

https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/

02/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome: Yaniv Oz – A Life Changed After Nasal Surgery

This episode tells the story of Yaniv Oz, a young man whose life changed after nasal surgery involving turbinate reduction.
Through the account of his mother, Toni Carroll, the episode follows Yaniv’s life before surgery, the gradual development of severe symptoms, his search for answers, and his discovery of the Empty Nose Syndrome community only days before his death.
The episode also explains some of the physiology behind ENS — altered nasal resistance, loss of airflow sensation, air hunger, sleep disruption, autonomic stress, hyperventilation and hypocapnia.
Yaniv died by suic... in 2018 at the age of 26.

His story deserves to be remembered — and understood.

More information about Empty Nose Syndrome:
https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/

01/10/2026

🎙️ Empty Nose Syndrome Podcast

A short introduction to Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS) — a complex condition that can develop after nasal surgery involving the turbinates.

The podcast explains how altered nasal anatomy, airflow and sensory function can lead to the paradoxical feeling of not getting enough air, even when the nasal passages appear unusually open.
It also discusses the impact ENS can have on breathing, sleep and everyday life.

🎧 Duration: about 9 minutes
Please share if you think this could help increase awareness and understanding of Empty Nose Syndrome.

01/10/2026

Empty Nose Syndrome After Septoplasty and Turbinate Reduction

This video tells the deeply troubling story of a husband and father who, according to his wife’s account, developed severe symptoms after septoplasty and turbinate reduction and was later diagnosed with Empty Nose Syndrome (ENS).

His wife described severe sleep problems, an abnormal loss of nasal sensation and a rapid deterioration in his condition. Her story also raises important questions about turbinate surgery, informed consent and the need for greater awareness of ENS.

Empty Nose Syndrome can involve paradoxical nasal obstruction, air hunger, dryness, burning, altered airflow sensation and severe sleep disturbance — even when the nasal airway appears anatomically open.

This video is based on a personal account originally shared in the Empty Nose Syndrome community on Reddit. The individual circumstances have not been independently verified.

Please share to help raise awareness of Empty Nose Syndrome and the potential complications of nasal surgery.

Read the full article:
https://fonderingar.blogspot.com/2025/02/my-husbands-empty-nose-syndrome.html

More information about ENS:
https://empty-nose-syndrome-info.blogspot.com/

25/09/2026

https://fonderingar.blogspot.com/2026/09/empty-nose-syndrome-ens-guillaume.html

Guillaume Buiret explains Empty Nose Syndrome: TRPM8, ENS6Q, cotton test, diagnosis, treatment, surgery, stem cells, CFD and AI.