Broken noses anyone ?

[zombiemommie]

I am pretty sure my almost 3 year old broke his nose today. We will go to the pedi tomorrow to find out. I didn't want to do the whole ER, xrays, wait forever thing it would only make him more upset. The pedi on call said we could wait until tomorrow. He fell off of a less than one foot high gym mat at a Gymboree birthday party and "face planted". His nose is extremely bruised, looks crooked, and bled like anything. I am also a trauma nurse and it just looks broken to me. Hopefully I am wrong. He has a fat lip on top.

Does anybody have any experience with this ? I guess I'm just looking for reassurance. I'm not sure I want him to have it re-aligned if it is going to be traumatic, I'd rather just have him have a bumpy nose, KWIM ? I hate seeing my baby in so much pain. He is a very active child and this is our first, MAJOR boo-boo.

Any advice /stories would be much appreciated.

[3boysmom]

My 8 year old broke his nose a few months ago. I posted a thread very similar to yours hoping to find someone else who'd been through it - no luck.

My son broke his nose while at school, so I got the dreaded "something terrible has happened" phone call. I took him immediately to our pediatrician who said "Yep, looks broken to me, you should see a specialist ." He sent us immediately on to an ENT (ear, nose throat) specialist who again said "Yep, it's broken alright." She basically manipulated the nose back into place using her hands and a few odd instruments and sent us on our way with a note to excuse him from PE class and instructions to return in 6 weeks to be sure it had healed correctly. She said to return earlier if it seemd to be getting crooked, or if the pain increased instead of lessening over time.

DS looked like hell for 5-7 days with swollen nose, two black eyes, scrapes and bruising - but these are really cool badges of honor for a third grade boy, he loved it! It healed perfectly with no problems at all. When I took him back after 6 weeks the doc said it looked great and gave us the ok to resume normal activity. DS looks just the same as before. It did hurt when he sneezed for quite a while, but even that is fine now.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out!

[teachma]

I broke my nose when I fainted at age 17. It was actually not a big deal (the nose part- not the fainting part) and I never have gotten it fixed. I hope your ds is alright!

[zombiemommie]

I just wanted to reply that I took him to the pedi today and they didn't even xray it, just said yes it is broken and that he didn't need ENT, as long as he could "blow" out of both nostrils and that it wasn't crooked (it looked crooked yesterday but today it is just universally swollen and bruised. OH the bruising !!). I was relieved but still skeptikal because it looks TERRIBLE. Once the swelling goes down if it still looks funky I will ENT him just for 2nd opinion. But I'd prefer to just leave him be.

[teachma]

That's exactly what my experience was. Except that, years later, I suffered recurrent sinus problems and eventually wound up in the office of an ENT who told me the break had caused a deviated septum (which is a somehwat common problem some people are even born with). I do suffer chronic sinus problems now, but not bad enough to want to undergo an operation. So, just watch out for that as time passes by.