The pressure behind your face that never quite lifts. The infections that come back the moment the antibiotics stop. The winter you spend congested, tired and unable to smell your dinner. Chronic sinusitis is exhausting, and when medication genuinely stops working, surgery can reset it, provided it is the right surgery for your sinuses.
2 optionsA balloon, or full surgery. It depends on your sinuses.
Try First
Medical treatment
Sinus surgery is for chronic sinusitis that a proper course of medication has genuinely failed to control.
Procedure Time
30 min to 2 hours
A balloon procedure is short. Full endoscopic surgery for extensive disease takes longer.
Hospital Stay
Home the same day
Both approaches are day surgery. You go home the same day, breathing through a stuffy nose.
Back to Work
Days, or 1 to 2 weeks
Balloon: back in a few days. Full endoscopic surgery: a week or two, with some nasal cleaning to do.
What is sinus surgery?
Your sinuses are air-filled spaces in the bones around your nose, and each one drains into the nose through a narrow opening. In chronic sinusitis, the lining is persistently inflamed and those openings swell shut, so the sinuses cannot drain, mucus stagnates, and the whole cycle feeds itself: blockage, infection, more swelling, more blockage.
Sinus surgery breaks that cycle by opening the drainage pathways. It does not remove your sinuses; it enlarges the natural openings so they can drain and ventilate properly, and so that the sprays and rinses you use afterward can actually reach the lining. There are two ways to do it, and which one suits you depends entirely on how much of your sinus system is affected.
Surgery is not the first step, and we will not pretend it is. Chronic sinusitis is treated first, and properly, with medical management: nasal steroid sprays, saltwater rinses, treatment of allergy, and sometimes a longer course of specific medication. Surgery is for the people in whom that genuine, adequate medical treatment has not worked, which is a real and sizeable group, but not everyone with a stuffy nose. If you have not yet had a proper medical trial, that is where an honest surgeon starts, because operating on a sinus that would have responded to a spray helps nobody.
There are two operations for the sinuses, and they are not interchangeable. One is gentle and quick and suits limited disease. The other is more thorough and is the right answer when the problem is extensive. A scan of your sinuses is what tells your surgeon which you are.
Less Invasive
Balloon Sinuplasty
A small balloon is passed into the blocked sinus opening and gently inflated, widening the drainage pathway without removing tissue. It is quick, it can sometimes be done under local anesthetic, and the recovery is measured in days.
Best for
Limited, milder chronic sinusitis affecting the main sinuses
Removes tissue
No, it dilates the opening
Recovery
Typically a few days
Not for
Nasal polyps or extensive disease
Trade-off
Not suited to complex cases; less definitive for severe disease
More Definitive
Endoscopic Sinus Surgery
Using a camera and fine instruments passed through the nostril, the surgeon opens the blocked sinuses and removes inflamed tissue and polyps. It is the established, thorough operation, and the gold standard when disease is extensive.
Best for
Extensive disease, nasal polyps, failed previous surgery
Removes tissue
Yes, diseased tissue and polyps
Recovery
One to two weeks, with nasal cleaning
Handles
The complex sinuses a balloon cannot reach
Trade-off
A bigger procedure, with a longer recovery
How the choice is actually made. Both procedures relieve symptoms well in the patients they suit, and the honest evidence is that the balloon shines for limited disease while endoscopic surgery is clearly superior for extensive or polyp disease. It is not a case of one being better, it is a case of matching the operation to the sinuses. Because our surgeon performs both, the recommendation you get is based on your CT scan and your disease, not on which procedure the surgeon happens to offer. Anyone who recommends the same operation to every sinus patient is not looking at the scan closely enough.
CANDIDACY
Have you earned the operation?
Sinus surgery is a good operation for the right person, and the right person is someone whose chronic sinusitis has genuinely resisted proper medical treatment. Here is where that line sits.
Surgery may be right if you have
Symptoms of chronic sinusitis lasting more than about three months
Facial pressure, congestion, discharge or a lost sense of smell that will not lift
A genuine, adequate trial of sprays, rinses and medication that has not worked
A CT scan confirming the sinuses are actually blocked and inflamed
Recurrent infections that keep coming back the moment treatment stops
Try medical treatment first if
You have not yet had a proper course of nasal steroid spray and rinses
Your symptoms are really recurrent short colds, not persistent inflammation
Allergy is driving the problem and has not been properly treated
A CT scan shows your sinuses are actually clear despite the symptoms
Your symptoms are mild and manageable, even if occasionally annoying
If a proper trial of medication has not yet been done, the honest first step is to do it, and we will tell you so. Surgery is what comes after medicine has had a fair chance and failed, not instead of it. Ask a coordinator.
Your recovery, step by step.
This timeline is for endoscopic surgery, the more involved of the two. A balloon procedure is a gentler, shorter version of the same shape.
DAY 1
Surgery Day
Home the same day. The nose is blocked and there may be a little bleeding. You breathe through your mouth for now.
WK 1
Rinse & Rest
Saltwater rinses several times a day are the heart of recovery: they keep the healing sinuses clean. Congestion and crusting are normal.
WK 2
A Clean-Up Visit
A gentle office cleaning of the sinuses is often done around now to remove crusts and check healing. Back to work for most people.
WK 3–6
Opening Up
Breathing and drainage steadily improve. Smell often returns in this window, which for many people is the moment it feels worth it.
MO 2+
The New Normal
The sinuses have healed open. Ongoing sprays or rinses keep them that way, and the infections that ruled your winters recede.
Timelines are typical ranges, not promises. The most important honest point about sinus surgery is this: it opens the sinuses and lets treatment work, but it is not a cure for the underlying tendency to inflammation. Most people still use a nasal steroid spray or rinse afterward, sometimes indefinitely, and that is not a sign the surgery failed, it is how the result is maintained. Chronic sinusitis, particularly with polyps, can recur over the years and occasionally needs further treatment. Your surgeon will be clear about what your specific sinuses are likely to do, and ACCESS coordinates your follow-up close to home.
What does private sinus surgery cost in Canada?
There is no single price, and here the two approaches genuinely differ. A balloon procedure and full endoscopic surgery for extensive disease are different operations with different costs.
Rather than post a number that may not apply to you, we do something more useful: we review your CT scan and history, work out which operation you actually need, and give you one written, all-inclusive quote before anything is booked.
Balloon or endoscopic. This is the biggest driver: the balloon is a smaller procedure than full sinus surgery.
How many sinuses are involved. Opening one blocked sinus and clearing several are different amounts of work.
Polyps, or a septoplasty at the same time. Removing polyps or straightening the septum alongside adds to the procedure.
Primary or revision. Operating on sinuses that have been operated on before is more demanding.
Imaging you still need. A CT of the sinuses is essential to plan this properly, and arranging one is part of the quote.
Worth asking your coordinator about: third-party financing is available through established partners, and some private medical expenses may qualify for the Canada Revenue Agency's Medical Expense Tax Credit. We will walk you through all of it.
Set out separately, never buried: travel and accommodation where needed, and anything outside the surgical package such as ongoing sprays and rinses. You see every line before you commit. No hidden fees, ever.
Sinus surgery questions.
Straight answers to what patients ask us most about private sinus surgery in Canada.
Your CT scan decides, not your preference. Balloon sinuplasty is excellent for limited, milder chronic sinusitis affecting the main sinuses: it widens the drainage openings without removing tissue, it can sometimes be done under local anesthetic, and you recover in a few days. Endoscopic sinus surgery is the more thorough operation and the clear choice when disease is extensive, when there are nasal polyps, or when previous surgery has not worked, because it actually removes inflamed tissue and opens the deeper sinuses a balloon cannot reach. Our surgeon performs both, so the recommendation is based on your scan and your disease rather than on what he happens to offer. A balloon cannot fix polyp disease, and full surgery would be overkill for a single mildly blocked sinus, so matching the operation to the sinuses is the whole game.
Yes, and a good surgeon insists on it. Sinus surgery is for chronic sinusitis that has not responded to proper medical management, which means an adequate course of nasal steroid sprays, saltwater rinses, treatment of any allergy, and sometimes specific medication. This is not a hurdle put in your way; it is because a meaningful proportion of people improve enough with medication that they never need an operation, and operating on a sinus that would have settled with a spray is the wrong call. If you have already had a fair, proper trial and it has failed, then you have earned the operation and we will move ahead. If you have not, the honest first step is to do it.
There is no single price, and the two approaches differ. A balloon procedure is smaller than full endoscopic surgery, and the cost also depends on how many sinuses are involved, whether polyps or a septoplasty are dealt with at the same time, whether it is a first operation or a revision, and the facility. Instead of quoting a range that may not apply to you, ACCESS reviews your CT scan and history, works out which operation you need, and gives you one written, all-inclusive quote before anything is booked. Financing options and the CRA Medical Expense Tax Credit may also apply.
Long, and rising. Sinus surgery is not among the wait-time benchmarks Canada reports against, so no public figure exists for it. The Fraser Institute's 2025 survey of Canadian physicians put the median reported wait for otolaryngology at 43.8 weeks from family doctor referral to treatment, one of the longest of any specialty, and one that increased by more than six weeks in a single year. Chronic sinusitis is miserable but never urgent, which is exactly the profile of condition that waits longest.
Most people do, and it is worth understanding why so you are not disappointed. Sinus surgery opens the drainage pathways and lets treatment reach the lining, but it does not cure the underlying tendency of the lining to become inflamed. So a nasal steroid spray or rinse usually continues afterward, sometimes long term, and that is how the result is maintained rather than a sign the operation failed. The difference is that after surgery, those sprays actually reach where they need to and work far better than they could when the sinuses were blocked shut. In polyp disease especially, ongoing treatment is part of keeping the sinuses clear.
Yes. Travelling within Canada for privately funded surgery is a legitimate, well-established pathway, and coordinating it is exactly what ACCESS does. Both the balloon and endoscopic surgery are day procedures, so the trip is short, though after full endoscopic surgery a post-operative sinus cleaning is usually needed, which we arrange either before you fly home or with a provider near you. We handle the flights, the hotel and the car, and coordinate your follow-up and any nasal cleaning close to home.
Related procedures.
Explore the other ENT procedures we coordinate across Canada.
Nose
Septoplasty
Straightening the wall inside the nose so you can breathe. Often relevant to sinus disease, and a functional operation, not a nose job.
Speak with a care coordinator about your sinuses, and whether medication or surgery, and which surgery, is the right next step. No referral needed, no obligation, and a clear quote before anything is booked.
