Higher incidence of headache in patients with intermittent mucosal contact points between the septum and lateral nasal wall

Introduction The nasal mucosal contact points between the two opposing mucosal surfaces leading to the headache had been a point of debate for many years; the intermittent and fixed contact points and their relationship with headache have never been investigated before. We have studied the relationship of headache with a different type of contact points in our study. Objectives The aim of our study was to study two different types of mucosal contact point between the lateral nasal wall and the nasal septum and to study their relationship with symptom of headache. There have been many papers published related to the mucosal contact points in the nose and their relationship with headache, most of the published data did not find any relation between the headache and the mucosal contact points. We conducted a retrospective study of 116 patients with deviated nasal septum and contact point with the lateral nasal wall. Methods A retrospective study done at a tertiary institute Included 116 CT scan of paranasal sinuses showing the deviated nasal septum with mucosal contact points, 64 CT scan showed severe deviated nasal septum with fixed contact points between the septum and the inferior turbinate, other 52 scans showed the intermittent mucosal contact point, that is, septum is coming in contact with inferior turbinate only when turbinate is enlarged. Results Thirteen patients out of 64 patients (20.31%) had a headache in the fixed contact point group as compared to 20 out of 52 (38.46%) patients in the intermittent mucosal contact points group; post-surgery, the 17/20 patients improved in the intermittent mucosal contact points group as compared to 5/13 in fixed contact points group. Conclusions We conclude that the overall incidence of headache associated with mucosal contact points is low but the higher association is seen in the intermittent contact group. Level of Evidence 4.