If you’ve followed any of the California Surgical Institute blogs, you know we recommend using well-trained, board-certified surgeons.

No, not to pump up their business but to protect your own bottom line.

Using a doctor who doesn’t fully know or understand what he or she is doing can be really, really expensive due to:

• Repeat surgeries and hospital costs
• Time lost from the job

The cost of a rhinoplasty going for $6,000 can cost three times that much if the job is bungled.

Even after all the extra training, (four to seven years after medical school!) it can take years to fully understand nasal anatomy and how a nose heals over time after surgery.

Thanks to all the extra training and experience, a board-certified plastic surgeon or head and neck surgeon with many years experience not only knows all the complications that crop up, he or she knows how to treat them.

Never was that situation better demonstrated than in the case of “Doigy” who moved to a new location near the sea in England and found he had massive trouble breathing through his nose.

Eventually, Doigy, a 33-year-old Scottish teacher, went to see a doctor who found our lad had nasal polyps and performed a minor operation to remove them. Then, Doigy moved back to Scotland where he and his wife had two children.

By the time the kids were five and six, Doigy started wondering why he still could not sleep, had constant sore throats and “grotty” morning mouth.

His brothers also had nasal woes so he, Doigy, figured something was still wrong with his schnooze.

When Doigy went to see a fully trained nasal surgeon, he learned he had a deviated septum (the wall of cartilage that separates the two nostrils) and that only one worked. No wonder breathing while sleeping was tough!

The first physician — who had to be competent to hold his job in Britain’s National Health Service — completely missed the deviated septum.

What’s next?

Nasal surgeons have two basic marching orders:

• Provide a functional nose, i.e., one the patient can breathe through
• Provide an attractive nose that fits into the patient’s face

Doigy is now scheduled for surgery to straighten the septum and trim away some nasal bone.

Doigy’s blog follows his nasal surgery.