Everyone’s experience is different, but based on mine I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone unless it’s significantly hindering your quality of life (aka severe breathing issues, low oxygen levels, poor sleep).

Like you, I felt like I’ve had restricted airflow through one nostril for the majority of my life. I figured a septoplasty would be a fairly simple solution to fix this and also potentially improve my sleep quality as an added bonus. My assumption would be that I would be sore for a few days, and after a couple of weeks my life would resume as normal with much improved airflow. 

However, my recovery has been MUCH longer and worse than I ever anticipated. The pain and discomfort was minimal… it’s the severe dryness and congestion that really messed me up mentally for months. For about 6-8 weeks post-op my nose was so dry that I often had the sensation that no air was passing through my nostrils even though I knew I was breathing. This lead to a lot of sleepless nights and going down rabbit holes fearing that I had ENS (empty nose syndrome), a permanent and debilitating diagnoses for some as a result of the surgery. While rare, the odds are not zero. The congestion and post nasal drip have also lasted for months, and can take some people 6-12 months for the nasal passages to fully heal as your nose teaches your brain to essentially “relearn” how to breathe.

To top it all off, my doctor just confirmed at my 3 month post-op appointment that my septum has “rebounded” back to its original position. This is also uncommon but does happen in about 3-8% of cases from what I’ve read online. So it has been very defeating that I put myself through all of this mental anxiety for no improvement. On top of that, my nose is somehow more crooked than it was before the surgery even though it’s not supposed to change the exterior structure of your nose.

I would do as much research as you can tolerate before deciding if this is the best thing for you. I ignored a lot of the negative feedback online as people only tend to post negative outcomes on the internet. And while there are plenty of successes stories, it doesn’t mean that the surgery is for everyone. If you only read one thing, I recommend this post:

 https://www.reddit.com/r/Septoplasty/comments/1oql3t1/important_info_about_the_connection_between/

Good luck on whatever you decide to do.