First off, I want to note this, or anything I say for that matter, is not medical advice or me telling you what to do. I'd like to discuss this, however, because today I woke up to someone posting a picture of their palate in my comment section asking if they should do expansion. While I found that hilarious, it also brought up a lot of thoughts that I want to share. So, as always, let me explain this from my own experience and why I plan to get one. The symptoms I struggled with kept directing me toward ENTs. Post-nasal drip, ear congestion and ringing, hearing loss, constantly feeling like I had to clear my throat, sinusitis, and not breathing well through my nose, just to name a few. With a symptom list like that, who wouldn't think the best specialist to see would be an ENT? Unfortunately, after meeting with seven of them, none had any answers to my problems. The only new thing discovered was a mild case of acid reflux. After ear pressure tests, hearing tests, and seven nasal endoscopies, one doctor did offer to do surgery on my septum. I was too nervous to sign up for the surgery initially, but after a year or so of persistent symptoms and no answers, I went back to the surgeon. I thought maybe he saw something the others missed when, in reality, I should have viewed it as a major red flag. In general, if six out of seven doctors don't bring up the idea of surgery, it's probably not needed. But hey, I was desperate for symptom relief. After the septum surgery that I'm still coming to terms with, I was left with a weaker-looking nose, a more crooked septum than I started with (because I personally don't even know if there was a deviated septum in the first place—my nose was straight as an arrow), turbinates reduced to the point of almost being invisible, dryness, bleeding, and a hard time clearing my nose. This isn't meant to scare anyone away from septum surgery if it's actually needed, but in my case, it wasn't. After putting my body through an unnecessary four-hour surgery that, on average, takes 30–90 minutes, and still not being able to breathe well through my nose to this day, I found out the hard way that what I truly needed was a palate expander.