I've had an ENT surgeon explain some of the normal/traditional surgical methods of doing turbinate reduction, and it seems to be fairly complex; some methods preserve or reconstruct the underlying bone structure which may be needed for the turbinates to function correctly, while others just do a straight reduction and don't consider the final composition of what remains of the turbinates. I'm trying to find out how somnoplasty relates to this.
It comes and goes. The breathe right strips mentioned by another commenter helps. I find it feels more clear the next day after using them.
But i've found the biggest thing that helps is paying attention to.my stress and the way I hold the muscles in my face. I find making a concious effort to takes some time to do some deep breathing and focus on relaxing the muscles around my eyes and my jaw really helps. A few days of keeping up with that and I findy breathing and pain and such go away.
I also find it to.be a good way to gauge my stress levels. When the sinus infection cones back and stays for a bit. I know i've been slacking with being mindful and letting stress get on top of me.
Sometimes the swelling would affect the rest of my airway and I'd feel like I couldn't take even a moderately deep breath. I'd be rushed to the ER but the doctors couldn't find anything other than an elevated heart rate (and some immediately went to their go-to diagnosis of it being stress or a panic attack). After going through that about 10 times, I got a good doctor who told me: "oh dear, you're actually choking." But then, things like hereditary angioedema were ruled out, and the cause remained elusive. I later discovered I could control my symptoms with diet.
I'm now looking into having somnoplasty to reduce the size of my turbinates, but it's unclear whether doing so will simply shift the problem to another narrow point of my swollen nasal passage.
I appear to have lost some kind of cosmic lottery because I also have severe digestive issues and must follow a very strict diet (which also reduces the airway swelling). As you touched upon, it is very hard to accept that you spent most of your life not being able to be yourself. I know I spent most of mine in a subdued fight or flight mode due to the chronic strain on my basic bodily functions. It's been a cruel existence thus far and I can't wait for the day I can rid myself of this torture definitively (my plan for fixing my problems is getting closer to fruition and I've had some success with some of the measures I've tried).