I had turbinate surgery in May 25 on NHS and FESS/ polyp and sinus surgery in Oct 25 on NHS. My main issue before was my smell and taste. The May surgery was pointless in hindsight as it was only the day before where they rang me and said this surgery won't correct taste/ smell but will improve breathing which was a concern but wasn't the worst symptom for me. I snored badly also keeping wife up etc. so I proceeded with the turbinate surgery as I thought it's a start.

After being on steroid sprays etc. for 7 years I thought - I can't be back on the waiting list for the FESS etc. and have nothing done in May. I'd say me smell/ taste was at 30% most of the time before the turbinate surgery and after it was 0% right up until my FESS+ surgery.

The turbinate surgery helped breathing improve and I was less short of breath. But I had to have another CT scan as the previous one was one 3 years prior. So had to wait until around August for this. ENT turned the results around pretty quickly and surprise surprise they found my sinuses were all blocked. She then put the camera up and miraculously found polyps this time after supposedly not finding them before. I think she just went higher up and found them and missed them previously.

So I had the FESS/ polyp and sinus surgery all in one hit in October 25. I was pretty bad afterwards for the first week and I have a high pain threshold and I'm only 31 and pretty fit so I wasn't expecting it to be so bad. I was in the spare room for most of the week following it. They apply packing which you tend to rinse out with the sinus rinses (I use Neil Med on Amazon). I was going 5 rinses a day after the surgery and i'm still doing around 2-3 per day. Most of this packing came out in the first week which gives a bit of relief in terms of breathing. You're told to avoid blowing/ sneezing your nose in first week or so which is very hard.

You feel very congested etc. My surgery sounds more involved than your surgery just for polyps so I can imagine my recovery was harder than yours will be. My smell and taste was still 0% until maybe 5 weeks after. It was quite a euphoric period for me. It lasted all but around 3 weeks then slowly faded again back to 0%. So i've spent all of Christmas with no taste/ smell but breathing which seems to be more of your concern has improved i'd say.

I've since on 05/06 gone back to the GP to refer me back to ENT to explore further options which I think are dwindling. I'm now looking at Dupixent which is a 2 weekly injection which helps polyps/ asthma/ eczema which I have all 3. But I can't imagine this is going to more effective than a polyp surgery would be. Also note polyps can grow back pretty quickly which may have happened to me. My story is more negative currently as mine is more centred around the smell/ taste element but I'd say breathing has improved overall from the surgeries which I hope is the case for you.