What Is a Nasal Fracture?
A nasal fracture refers to a break in the bone of your child’s nose. This injury can cause a variety of symptoms, including pain, nosebleeds or trouble breathing. ENT for Children can provide treatment to fix the injury and relieve your child’s discomfort.
How Can I Tell If My Child’s Nose Is Broken?
Symptoms of a nasal fracture include:
- Pain or tenderness of the nose
- Swelling of the nose or nearby areas
- Bruising around the nose
- Crooked nose
- Difficulty breathing through their nose
- Feeling like their nasal passages are blocked
- Bloody nose
What Causes a Nasal Fracture?
- Injury from sports like football, hockey or wrestling
- Car accidents
- Physical fights
- Falls
How Is a Nasal Fracture Treated?
Initial treatment of a nasal fracture involves ensuring there is no other severe head trauma, confirming that nose bleeding has stopped, and checking for a septal hematoma, which may need drainage. If a fracture is diagnosed, treatment will depend on the injury’s severity. Some nasal fractures don’t require surgery if there’s no external or internal deformity and breathing remains unaffected. However, a surgeon might recommend surgery if a deformity or breathing obstruction exists.
The timing of surgery is critical. Due to swelling early on after the injury and the start of healing of fractured bones, surgery is usually scheduled 7-14 days following the trauma. Most procedures involve repositioning the bones without incisions. An external splint or cast is applied after surgery and removed after 7-10 days.
Complete healing of the nasal bones usually takes 6-8 weeks. During this time, it is vital to protect the nose from further injury, especially during activities like sports. If fractures are allowed to heal on their own, surgery might need to be postponed for at least 6 months and could require a more invasive “open rhinoplasty” performed by a facial plastic surgeon.
Call ENT for Children for more information or to schedule an appointment.