Mike had been struggling from chronic sinus infections for years. Here's how this IRONMAN triathlete's performance improved once he decided to make a change:
“My name is Mike and I am a passionate, endurance athlete.
I first started realizing that I have sinus issues in college with reoccurring sinus infections, and the problem I was having was every time I would get run down. The first thing that would notice was that my sinus infections would start to come back, so it kind of became a chronic problem.
After college, I started to use more and more over-the-counter medications and nasal sprays to the point that I thought sometimes I was overusing them. I was getting an adverse reaction to them, but I had no other way to deal with it other than using those and the Neti Pot. Eventually, I just kind of gave up on it.
As I got older, it just became more and more of awareness of my sinus problems along with my endurance training, where I was realizing that I was having a tougher time breathing than some of the other athletes I was training with. I knew that I was stuffed up majority of the time and it was just very difficult.
When I first found out about the procedure from another athlete and to know that I could come in and have an in-office procedure done that would help me open up the air passages, I was extremely excited. I have been suffering from this for many, many years and it truly was kind of the game changer for me to know that that was out there.
After my first visit, my consultation, and after meeting and understanding what was possible and that it was very possible for me to have the procedure done in the office and have them open up my airways and my sinuses, was extremely exciting.
My healthcare with ADVENT was top notch. I've gone through many surgeries over the years and many of them have been athletic injuries, but I also looked at this along the same way, that this was something that I was doing to, not only improve just an ongoing sinus conditions, but also a way to improve my breathing and improve my overall endurance training.
Night and day, again suffering probably 30 years ago with just the sinus infections and the constant stuffy nose, thinking it was just going to be a hereditary issue that I had to live with, to fast forwarding to now, where realizing it was something that could be easily corrected and the change was noticeable right away. In fact, with a little over two weeks after my surgery is when I had to report to Madison for IRONMAN Wisconsin, and I was so excited and thrilled, that I took the time to have the procedure done prior to the race.
Athletes are a funny group. We have a tendency to be bombarded with advertisements for products. The word-of-mouth and the recommendations from other athletes is where we all seem to migrate. In fact, I found out about the procedure from an athlete. Since then, I've had the conservation with many athletes about the procedure and, in fact, one of my other teammates is in the process, right now, of looking into it. ADVENT not only solved my problem, but I would highly recommend it to other athletes. A lot of us suffer from sinus drainage issues and a lot of us are looking for the quick fix. Some of those are over-the-counter medicines, some of them can be the Breathe Right® strips that we try to apply, that are very difficult to keep on while training and participating.
One of the things that I've noticed as an athlete is there are times whether you are talking; there are times when you're trying to take in nutrition; there are things that you're doing out there on the race course, especially with an event like IRONMAN, which is an all-day event, and not having the ability to breathe through your sinuses well can cause a lot of problems. It almost forces you to get out of breathe more than you would think of bringing in the air that you need.
With having the airways, my airway passages cleared out, this is my fourth IRONMAN and it was, by far, one of my best. The entire time I was so glad that I took the procedure, or had the procedure done, prior to the race.”