Deviated Septum and Snoring: Why It Happens and What Actually Helps

A deviated septum is one of the most overlooked causes of chronic snoring — and one of the most misunderstood. Around 80% of people have some degree of septal deviation, but only a fraction experience symptoms severe enough to disrupt their breathing at night. If you’re one of them, you already know the pattern: one side of your nose always feels blocked, you default to mouth breathing during sleep, and the snoring follows.

The frustrating part is that most general snoring advice doesn’t apply. Losing weight won’t straighten your septum. Sleeping on your side helps, but only partially. And many people cycle through nasal sprays, strips, and pillows before realising the structural issue inside their nose is the root cause.

This guide explains exactly how a deviated septum causes snoring, which non-surgical remedies actually work for this specific type of snoring, and when surgery becomes the right call.

How a Deviated Septum Causes Snoring

The nasal septum is the wall of cartilage and bone that divides your nose into two passages. When it’s centred, air flows evenly through both sides. When it’s deviated — shifted to one side — one passage becomes significantly narrower than the other.

During the day, this may cause mild congestion on one side but nothing you can’t manage. At night, it becomes a bigger problem, for three reasons:

1. Nasal tissue swells when you lie down. When you’re horizontal, blood pools in the nasal mucosa, causing the tissue to swell. In a normal nose, this mild swelling is barely noticeable. In a nose with a deviated septum, the already-narrow side can swell shut entirely. What was manageable congestion during the day becomes a full blockage at night.

2. You switch to mouth breathing. With one nasal passage closed and the other partially restricted, your body takes the easier route — breathing through your mouth. This is automatic and happens without you waking up.

3. Mouth breathing triggers snoring. When your mouth opens during sleep, your jaw drops back, your tongue shifts toward your throat, and the upper airway narrows. Air passing through this narrowed space vibrates the soft palate and surrounding tissue. That vibration is the snoring sound.

The key difference between deviated-septum snoring and other types: it’s structural. The obstruction is physical — a wall of cartilage in the wrong position — not inflammatory (like congestion-based snoring) or muscular (like throat-tissue collapse). This means the snoring tends to be persistent and predictable, not seasonal or situational.

Is It Your Septum or Something Else?

Not every person with a deviated septum snores because of it. Here’s how to tell if your septum is the likely culprit:

Signs your septum is causing your snoring:

• You consistently breathe better through one nostril than the other
• Your snoring is present most nights, not just when you’re sick or during allergy season
• Nasal strips or dilators reduce your snoring noticeably (because they’re compensating for the narrowed passage)
• You were told you had a deviated septum during a past medical exam
• You’ve had a nasal injury (broken nose, impact to the face)

Signs something else is causing your snoring:

• Your snoring is seasonal or correlates with allergy exposure
• Both nostrils feel equally blocked (more likely congestion than deviation)
• You snore even when your nose feels clear (suggests throat-based snoring)
• Nasal products don’t help at all
• Your snoring involves gasping, choking, or breathing pauses (suggests sleep apnea)

If you’re unsure, an ENT specialist can examine your nasal passages in minutes using a nasal endoscope and tell you definitively whether your septum is deviated and whether it’s contributing to your snoring. For a broader overview of symptoms, see our guide to recognising deviated septum symptoms.

Non-Surgical Ways to Reduce Deviated Septum Snoring

Surgery (septoplasty) is the only permanent fix for a deviated septum, but it’s not always necessary — and it’s not always the first step. Many people manage their snoring effectively with the right combination of non-surgical approaches. The goal is to maximise airflow through the narrowed passage and prevent mouth breathing.

Internal Nasal Dilators — The Best Non-Surgical Option

For deviated-septum snoring specifically, internal nasal dilators outperform external nasal strips. Here’s why: an external strip lifts the outside of your nostrils, which helps with general congestion but doesn’t address a structural narrowing deeper inside the nasal passage. An internal dilator sits inside the nostril and physically holds the passage open from within — directly countering the obstruction caused by the deviated septum.

A 2019 clinical comparison published in Acta Otorhinolaryngologica Italica found that internal dilators were effective in a larger number of snoring patients and produced better sleep quality improvements than external nasal strips.

Best option: The Mute nasal dilator comes in three sizes (small, medium, large) and is adjustable to control how much it opens the passage. It’s reusable for up to 10 uses per device, which brings the cost to about $0.75 per night. Start with the starter pack that includes all three sizes — the right fit matters significantly with a deviated septum since one nostril is narrower than the other.

For a full comparison of dilators and strips, see our guide to the best nasal strips for snoring.

External Nasal Strips — Helpful but Limited

Standard nasal strips like Breathe Right Extra Strength can provide some relief by lifting the nostrils from the outside. They work best for mild deviations where the obstruction is near the nasal valve (the entrance to the nostril) rather than deeper inside. For moderate to severe deviations, strips alone are usually insufficient — but they can complement an internal dilator. Some people use a dilator on the narrower side and a strip across the bridge of the nose for additional lift.

Nasal Corticosteroid Spray

A deviated septum alone causes snoring through physical obstruction. But if you also have any degree of allergic inflammation on top of the deviation, the combination makes things significantly worse. A daily nasal corticosteroid spray (fluticasone/Flonase, triamcinolone/Nasacort) reduces the inflammatory component, giving air more room to pass through the already-narrow passage.

This won’t fix the deviation itself, but it can be the difference between “manageable” and “blocked shut” — especially during allergy season. Spray into each nostril once daily, aiming toward the outer wall of the nose (not the septum). It takes 1-2 weeks of daily use to reach full effect.

Sleep Position

Which side you sleep on matters more with a deviated septum than with any other type of snoring.

Sleep on the side of your larger nostril facing down. If your septum deviates to the right (making the right passage narrower), sleep on your left side. Gravity helps the left passage stay open while reducing blood pooling on the wider side. This takes experimentation — try both sides and note which one lets you breathe more easily.

Elevate your head. Use a wedge pillow or raise the head of your bed 10-15 centimetres. This reduces the blood pooling in nasal tissue that causes the nighttime swelling which pushes a deviated septum from “partially blocked” to “fully blocked.”

Avoid sleeping on your back. Back sleeping combines the worst of both problems: gravity closes the narrowed nasal passage further AND allows the tongue and soft palate to fall backward, doubling the airway restriction.

For more positioning techniques, read our guide to the best sleeping position for a stuffy nose.

Saline Nasal Rinse Before Bed

A saline rinse before bed washes out mucus and allergens that compound the obstruction. With a deviated septum, mucus tends to accumulate on the narrower side because it can’t drain as efficiently. A neti pot or squeeze bottle flush clears this buildup and gives you the best possible starting airflow when you lie down.

One practical note: with a deviated septum, the saline may not flow as freely through the narrower side. Tilt your head slightly more toward the blocked side to help the solution reach it. Don’t force it — gentle pressure is sufficient.

See our neti pot guide for a full walkthrough of technique and best practices.

Mouth Taping (With Caution)

If you’ve addressed the nasal obstruction with a dilator and/or strips, adding mouth tape can prevent the residual tendency to mouth breathe. However, mouth taping with a deviated septum carries more risk than with a normal nose — if your nasal passage blocks during the night, you need to be able to breathe through your mouth.

Only try mouth taping if: you’ve confirmed you can breathe adequately through your nose while lying down with a dilator or strip in place. If you feel any restriction, do not tape your mouth. Consider using a tape with a breathing vent (like SomniFix) for an extra safety margin.

A Nightly Routine for Deviated Septum Snoring

Combining these approaches in the right order is more effective than any single remedy. Here’s a practical routine:

30 minutes before bed: Saline nasal rinse. Clear mucus from both passages, paying extra attention to the narrower side.

15 minutes before bed: If you use a nasal corticosteroid spray, apply it now. The rinse has cleared the way for the spray to reach the tissue directly.

At bedtime: Insert an internal nasal dilator (Mute or similar) into the narrower nostril. Optionally apply an external nasal strip across the bridge of the nose for additional lift. If you’re comfortable, apply mouth tape with a breathing vent.

Sleep environment: Humidifier running at 40-60% humidity. Wedge pillow or elevated head. Side sleeping on the side that keeps your wider passage facing down.

This combination addresses the structural narrowing (dilator), any inflammatory swelling (spray), mucus buildup (rinse), nighttime tissue swelling (elevation), and mouth breathing (tape). It’s the most comprehensive non-surgical approach.

When Surgery Is the Right Call: Septoplasty for Snoring

Non-surgical approaches manage the symptoms. Septoplasty fixes the cause. If you’ve tried the approaches above consistently for 3-6 months and your snoring hasn’t improved enough, surgery is worth discussing with an ENT specialist.

What Septoplasty Involves

Septoplasty is an outpatient procedure that takes 30-45 minutes under general or local anaesthesia. The surgeon straightens the deviated portion of the septum by removing or repositioning the displaced cartilage and bone. There are no external incisions — everything is done through the nostrils, so there’s no visible scarring or change to the external appearance of your nose.

Recovery

Most people return to normal activities within 5-7 days. Full healing of the internal nasal tissue takes 3-6 months. Swelling inside the nose can temporarily make breathing feel worse before it gets better — many patients report that the full benefit isn’t apparent until 4-8 weeks post-surgery.

Does Septoplasty Actually Stop Snoring?

The research shows meaningful but not universal improvement:

• A study in the European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology found that 86% of patients reported improved snoring scores after septoplasty, with an average improvement of 46%. However, complete resolution of snoring occurred in only 12% of patients.
• Another study reported that 65.8% of patients experienced relief from snoring, with the remainder noting decreased loudness.
• A third study found snoring improvement in 72.7% of patients.

What these numbers mean in practice: Septoplasty will likely reduce your snoring — in many cases substantially — but it may not eliminate it completely. This is because snoring can have multiple contributing factors. A deviated septum may be the primary cause, but age-related tissue laxity, weight, alcohol use, and sleep position can all contribute. Fixing the septum removes the structural component but doesn’t address the others.

The best candidates for septoplasty are people whose snoring is clearly worse on one side, who have confirmed nasal obstruction on exam, and whose snoring improves noticeably with internal nasal dilators (this suggests the nasal passage is the bottleneck, and permanently opening it via surgery would replicate the dilator’s effect).

Septoplasty and Sleep Apnea

A deviated septum doesn’t directly cause obstructive sleep apnea, but it can worsen it and make CPAP treatment less effective. If you have both a deviated septum and sleep apnea, septoplasty can improve CPAP tolerance by allowing better nasal airflow — some patients who couldn’t tolerate nasal CPAP masks find them comfortable after surgery. For more on managing CPAP with nasal issues, see our guide to CPAP and nasal congestion.

Deviated Septum Snoring vs Other Types: How to Tell the Difference

FAQs

Can a deviated septum cause snoring even if I can breathe through my nose during the day?

Yes. During the day, your nasal tissue is less swollen (thanks to being upright and gravity aiding drainage), so a mild-to-moderate deviation may not cause noticeable obstruction. At night, when you lie down and nasal tissue swells, that same deviation can reduce airflow enough to trigger mouth breathing and snoring. This is why many people with deviated septums don’t realise the septum is the problem — it only causes issues during sleep.

Will nasal strips fix snoring from a deviated septum?

External nasal strips can help with mild deviations by lifting the nostrils from the outside, but they have limited effect on obstructions deeper in the nasal passage. For deviated septum snoring specifically, internal nasal dilators (like Mute) are more effective because they hold the passage open from the inside, directly countering the structural narrowing. See our nasal strip comparison for detailed product recommendations.

How do I know if my snoring is from a deviated septum or from allergies?

The key difference is pattern. Deviated septum snoring is consistent — most nights, year-round, typically worse on one side. Allergy snoring is seasonal or environmental — worse during pollen season, in dusty rooms, or around pets, and affects both sides equally. If you’re unsure, an ENT specialist can examine your nose in minutes and tell you definitively. Many people have both — a deviation plus allergic inflammation — in which case treating the allergies first often reveals how much the septum alone is contributing.

Does septoplasty guarantee my snoring will stop?

No. Studies show that 65-86% of patients experience meaningful improvement in snoring after septoplasty, but complete elimination occurs in only about 12% of cases. Snoring often has multiple contributing factors, and septoplasty addresses only the nasal structural component. However, if your snoring is clearly linked to nasal obstruction (it improves with nasal dilators, it’s worse on one side, you’re a confirmed mouth breather), septoplasty offers the best chance of lasting improvement.

Can I use a CPAP machine if I have a deviated septum?

Yes, though it may require adjustments. A deviated septum can make nasal CPAP masks uncomfortable or less effective due to restricted airflow. Options include switching to a full-face mask, using a nasal corticosteroid spray to reduce swelling, or having septoplasty to improve nasal airflow before resuming nasal CPAP. Many patients find CPAP significantly more comfortable and effective after septoplasty. Read more in our CPAP and nasal congestion guide.

Is deviated septum surgery worth it just for snoring?

It depends on severity. If your snoring is mild and manageable with nasal dilators and sleep position changes, surgery may be unnecessary. If your snoring is severe, disrupts your partner’s sleep, and hasn’t responded to 3-6 months of non-surgical approaches, septoplasty is a reasonable option — especially since it also improves daytime nasal breathing, reduces sinus infections, and can resolve chronic mouth breathing. The procedure is outpatient, recovery is about a week, and complications are rare. Discuss the cost-benefit with your ENT specialist.