What does one sided watery discharge from nose mean? - Dr. Sreenivasa Murthy T M

When a person observes clear watery fluid on one side, but there is one entity in which there is watery nasal fluid only on one side and that too the same side, especially when they bents to eat food, or pick up something from the floor, then they should be very careful. This is because of a condition called CSF rhinorrhea. CSF is a fluid around the brain and the spinal cord. CSF is Cerebrospinal Fluid, which is a buffer between the brain and the spinal cord. This fluid is separated from the nose by a very thin layer of bone in the skull base especially in the front face. People in between 30’s to mid-40’s especially ladies on the obese side tend to have a spontaneous leak from the nose. This area of the skull base is called cribriform plate, there are sieves, when the holes get bigger, then the covering of the brain gets torn and then the fluid starts leaking from the nose. This is called idiopathic CSF leak, that means we don’t know the reason, but generally happens in that age group of people predominantly in women than in men. CSF leaks can also happen following nasal surgeries, skull base surgeries, brain surgeries, following trauma that is road traffic accidents, that is bike accidents and following head injury, there is CSF leak. The regular way it heals is within 14 days of rest, I will heal, but for some patient sit can be beyond that. This can be life threatening because the nose can carry germs into the cranium, that is the brain, causing meningitis, which is an infection of the covering of the brain. Meningitis is at times fatal. So it has to be repaired, done endoscopically, using an endoscope through the nose. So it is a scarless surgery. Prior to surgery, do a CT scan and an MRI to find out from where it is leaking.