Injuries and foreign bodies.

Abstract

3 weeks: too late to reduce Fractured nasal bones?Direct violence to the nose often fractures the bones of the nasal vault. The injury can usually be recognised clinically immediately afterwards by the distortion from normal shape, though this soon becomes obscured by soft tissue swelling. Injuries to other parts of the facial skeleton must be excluded. Associated fractures of the zygomaticomaxillary complex may impair normal opening of the jaw and cause faulty dental occlusion, diplopia, and anaesthesia of the skin supplied by the infra-orbital nerve. These injuries are always associated with rapid swelling of the soft tissues of the cheek, and a sub-conjunctival haemorrhage is usually apparent. Careful palpation of the bony skeleton around the edge of the orbit may disclose a typical step deformity.