Sinus Problems

This is in response to the comments about sinus problems in the thread about air conditioning. From when I was probably eighteen I have had sinus problems. I would usually come down with an infection in October and have to take heavy duty antibiotics to get rid of it. As I aged I got them more frequently and they would be harder to kick and last longer. Sometimes I would be good for five days after finishing the antibiotic, and then just get sick again. It got to the point that I could be sick and not able to do much for three months. I was tested for allergies, so then reducing exposure and taking antihistamines helped some. Finally an ENT physician's assistant put me on to sinus irrigation. This has been one of the biggest changes in my life!!! I irrigate twice a day everyday, and I have had just one sinus infection in five years. This is not a netti pot!! They take way too long to use. I just spray and inhale saline from a four ounce bottle into each nostril. For me this has been earth shattering!!

Its welcome relief, and from what little I know or experienced with it, you need a good doctor, or would it be specialist ? That seems to be the key, no parts replacers, you need a true mechanic on that job, or it may just drag on, and sometimes or in a situation like with my father it was life threatening. He kept having very close calls with asthma, and the doctors he was dealing with, never got to the root of the problem, he finally sorted through them, and suffered like h$ll the whole time, and got a real mechanic, not a parts replacer or should I say medication prescriber! This doctor made it his business to get to the bottom of this, and they concluded that sinus surgery was needed, there was an obscure infection that was just perpetuating itself, manifested so deep, and just triggering the asthma and copd like problems. Well after that surgery, he was about cured, though he caught some common illness and we almost lost him because it compounded the situation, but 18 months or so later, to the present, he's almost a miracle, can't tell you how the man suffered and was debilitated.

Everyone is different, just a story to share but, if he kept listening to the previous medical people it would have killed him.

I had a rupture in an artery in my nose, the cartilage section in the middle, and could not stop the bleeding, I was in Manhattan and the 10th precinct came to my office and whisked me off to St Vincents, siren going and all that, it was really weird, but my shirt was blood soaked as if I had a serious injury, I was in a conference room chair with my head tilted way back, darned phone ringing off the wall, Bill we need this, that, I had to hang up on them and explain later, was that bad. Those NYPD guys were a blessing, I am truly thankful for what they did. At St Vincent's they packed my nose like a cannon, I mean packed it tight, then sent me to a specialist, who took me right in, emergency, and cauterized it. I did a lot of follow up and this doctor was a real doctor who took all precautions and really focused on me, I had a CAT scan, revealing small passages in the sinuses and I told him I have problems with it since about the age of 30. He said the same thing, irrigation and or similar and in the dry winter, dry air in the house, there is relief, colds are tough because they pressurize so I am careful with hygiene and germs, eat right, keep the immune system up and try and get rest.

Good you found some relief, its a hard place to deal with and needs the best medical professionals you can find as far as I can tell. !!!

Where do I get one. I have the same problem.

I have had sinus problems most of my life. As a kid, hay hauling season and grain harvest were torture to me, but I did the work since it had to be done.

I have had sinus infections hundreds of times. In my teens and 20"s the doctor I went to prescribed antibiotics, and at first that worked fairly well. But over the years, antibiotics quit working much at all for me, and I had a more or less constant sinus infection, with lots of pressure and pain. I tried allergy tests and shots, but they didn"t seem to help much. I also used steroid nasal spray, which would shrink the membranes, at least for a while.

Finally in my early 30"s I went to an ENT specialist. He told me that I had badly broken my nose sometime, which caused a deviated septum, and that the openings to my maxillary or cheekbone sinuses were essentially nonexistent. I had a couple of very painful operations to open up the sinuses so they would drain by gravity, remove the cupful of growths in the sinuses, and to straighten and reduce the deviated septum.

Getting rid of the pressure in those large sinuses really helped a lot. I can breathe much better, and now they will drain, if not exactly normally, good enough so I seldom get sinus infections. I don"t think I have used antibiotics more than a couple of times in the last 20 years.

I do have trouble with nosebleeds and have had to have bleeders cauterized several times. I believe that using the steroid nasal spray for a long time damaged the lining of my nasal area, making the tissue thin. I cannot take ANY aspirin or aspirin-like drugs or I will get a bad nose bleed soon after. It is scary when your nose starts bleeding heavily for no apparent reason and I carry Afrin nasal spray to try to stop the blood flow at all times. Once when a nasal artery broke, the Doctor estimated that I had dumped 2 pints of blood. I would NOT recommend using steroid nasal spray.

I wish I had gone to the ENT specialist much earlier. I think I could have avoided a lot of suffering if I had. Medicine has progressed over time, and now I believe that it would be possible to open my sinuses and clean out the growths with a "scope" rather than the much more serious surgery they did on me years ago. The doctor said the new openings in my sinuses were large enough to get a finger into if I somehow stuck it up my nose that far. I have not tried.

I rinsed my nasal area morning and night, and have been doing so for many years. At first I mixed my own saline by guess or by gosh and injected the saline in each nostril with an ear syringe. Now I use the plastic squeeze bottle and the premeasured salt packets in the Neilmed kit. It works as well as the ear syringe and the salinity of the warm water is more consistent. Washing out the nasal area helps remove any dried mucus or other crud, and makes me feel better.

Something else that seems to help my nasal area is the use of my CPAP machine while I am sleeping. The CPAP is for sleep apnea, and it seems to really help that problem (I sleep much more effectively and do not snore almost at all). But an unexpected benefit of using the CPAP is that the moistened air helps keep the mucus in my nasal area from drying out as bad during the night.

Sinus rinsing may help. Using a CPAP might help. But I recommend consulting the best ENT doctor available, as they probably can help you deal with sinus problems the best way. Good luck, I hope you get what works best for you!

(quoted from post at 12:43:37 05/13/14) Where do I get one. I have the same problem.

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Every drug store has them. They are just four ounce saline with a misting tip.

I graduated from the squeeze bottle. This is what I use and recommend.
Sinupulse Elite

I suffered so bad with sinus/hayfever when I was younger that I was like a misfit in school. Runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes and so on.
Baling hay I had a mask that I wore and it helped very little. Later on in life my Dr put me on Seldane, until it was taken off the market.
At about age 40, my allergies went away and at age 64 I am not bothered with sinus problems.
On the other side my wife developed allergies at about age 45.

Had 2 sinus surgeries and have to use the spray once
in awhile. Also do the saline thing often. decided
one day i was going to make my own. good dose of
salt, shook it up and shot it up my nose. Dumb move
in a big way. Burned like hell. I live in TN, had
the allergy test and allergic to Oak. Always
wondered why I itched when out deer hunting. Took
the shots for awhile and they did not help.

(quoted from post at 15:25:23 05/13/14) I graduated from the squeeze bottle. This is what I use and recommend.
Sinupulse Elite

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I just can't see myself taking the time for that. I'm sure that it is great but it would end up just collecting dust.

I used to get terrible migraines associated with sinus issues. Real bad. I took to carrying sinus spray with me. The down side to that is that you tend to damage the inside of your nose. My problems finally culminated in an infection of epic proportion. Antibiotics wouldn't touch it and I was a day away from the hospital when it let go. Burst is the word I'd use. You've never seen anything like it and you don't want to. Hurt like crazy too. But, since then I haven't had the problems I had before. I lay a lot of that on pretty much not using the sinus spray anymore. Now I get the occasional "silent migraine" with the tunnel vision but no pain. A small dose of spray usually clears it up in 20 minutes. OTOH, my wife uses the spray nightly and suffers from migraines quite often. I think the spray does some damage and makes things worse for some people. This is the Sinex/Affrin type spray, not the saline mist.

(quoted from post at 03:50:25 05/14/14) I used to get terrible migraines associated with sinus issues. Real bad. I took to carrying sinus spray with me. The down side to that is that you tend to damage the inside of your nose. My problems finally culminated in an infection of epic proportion. Antibiotics wouldn't touch it and I was a day away from the hospital when it let go. Burst is the word I'd use. You've never seen anything like it and you don't want to. Hurt like crazy too. But, since then I haven't had the problems I had before. I lay a lot of that on pretty much not using the sinus spray anymore. Now I get the occasional "silent migraine" with the tunnel vision but no pain. A small dose of spray usually clears it up in 20 minutes. OTOH, my wife uses the spray nightly and suffers from migraines quite often. I think the spray does some damage and makes things worse for some people. This is the Sinex/Affrin type spray, not the saline mist.

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I used the Affrin for a short time a long while back but my Doctor and PA were adamant about keeping me off it because it makes you dependent. I use just the saline.

showcrop,
When I grew up on the farm, I thought there were
summer time colds and winter time colds. All the
crap I inhaled, plowing, disking, cultivating,
baling hay, straw, with tractors and combine with
no cabs. I don't think cabs were invented yet.

Well, in 2000, after 4 rounds of strong meds, I
got angry with DR. that was treating me for
infected inner ear. After a cat scan, I had sinus
surgery to fix my problem. Wasn't fun, but it
helped. I use salt spray, but most importantly, I
use resperators all the time. Oak sawdust will
kill my sinuses. Tree pollen, maple which starts
in January and Feburary in #1. Right now other
tree pollen is at max levels. When the mushrooms
are out, what ever is in the air kills me. So I
take meds then look for mushrooms.

Even the smoke from welding, cigaretts, exhaust
fumes mess with me. So I have to weld outside with
a fan behind me to push the smoke away.

I thought I was the only one with sinus issues.
Air conditioning saves me. I'm outside all the
time, so at night I need relief. A/c does clean
the air. High moisture levels also increase mold
levels, which screws up sinuses too.

You may need surgery.

I love flowers, I have to just look at them, not
smell them.
George

I use to have major sinus problems, one infection
after another. The ones I got during the winter
months were horrible. It took me 30 years to find
out that corn harvest dust was a major contributor
to a lot of my sinus problems. At age 38 I
developed a palyp in my left sinus. When I would
walk or stand for a short time the pain was like
the worse toothache. Then when I would lay down
for 20 minutes it went away. Then it got to the
point I was blowing clotted blood out of my nose
every hour or so. I was really concerned. I kept
going to my family doctor and he said I had a
sinus infection. I finally got fed up and told him
I want to see a specialist. Went to a eye, nose &
throat doctor. I scheduled a CAT Scan first thing
the next day. Sure enough there it was. Two weeks
later he removed the palyp. I had my sinuses
packed full of cotton sprinkled with cocaine. I
had no pain for the first 30 minutes after waking
up but then the next ten days not being able to
breath thru my nose was exhausting. After the 2nd
and 3rd operation for a mucus cyst my sinuses are
good now. The First operation the doctor opened up
the passage between the two sinuses on the left
allowing for better drainage. I now just flush my
sinuses with warm salt water. That helps a lot.