A Slight Bit of Whine
September 26th, 2007Possible Twitter posts about my third sinus infection this year:
“Damn Neti Pot isn’t doing anything except making my nose leak gooey/bloody mucous that scares my friends who are watching and terrified.”
“No I’m not senile, just congested.”
“My wife thinks I’ve lost my mind, but you try keeping your business together after you’ve just met the man who played Ian Faith in This is Spinal Tap!”
“The last two rounds of amoxicillin didn’t do crap.”
“No, I don’t have a brain tumor or a series of brain tumors. It’s a sinus infection. Again. Yay!”
For the uninitiated, I present:
I have written about being sick (Los Angeles, 2002) before, but this year has been brutal. I blame stress, the move (dust galore!) and taking a business trip with an awesome yet very feisty and determined toddler who happens to be my daughter. I also blame global warming and Republicans.
I’m taking a third course of antibiotics and have been reading about a (slightly dated) new hope. o
Found this on Boing Boing and though of you!!
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/miracle-saves-teens-eye/2007/04/19/1176697005264.html
I recall going to an ENT as a child for chronic sinusitis. Talk about an early childhood trauma.
He strapped me to the chair, turned me upside down and proceeded to vacuum out my sinuses through my nose.
I still haven’t recovered, and have a lifelong aversion to being upside down, now.
BTW, I wouldn’t use the neti with an infection in place. It might wash gunk back, and adding moisture won’t help your situation.
You have my sympathies, though.
Jon, I too suffer from those horrendous infections. What I found to work is aromatherapy. Personally I use red thyme oil in an oil burner every night and several times throughout the day. It will also help the rest of your house stay healthy and smells like you’re gonna have a gorgeous savoury dinner when you’ve got it going. I know, might be a bit Earthy for Heather, but it just might work and as it is natural…you just never know. Besides, it can’t be worse than subjecting your body to all those antibiotics, that can’t be good for you!
I read that some sinus infections are fungal, not bacterial. Maybe that’s why the antibiotics aren’t working.
Try N-Acetylcysteine (NAC).
I’ve read a few studies on this (my hubby suffers from chronic sinus crap too) and what we’ve found out is that rarely do antibiotics do anything. Good old fashioned irrigation often does a lot more. Feel free to call me a granola kook.
Wow, another who feels my pain. #7 this year Jon, and yes I am at wits end like you. Antibiotics work for about 3 months at best, the longest time I went with no symptoms.
Things that helped: Veramyst (nasal spray) and concurrent oral antibiotics with nebulized antibiotics. That worked the longest and seemed to kill all of the infection from last time. It seems that if you dont get rid of the current infection, if you continue to produce mucus it will also become infected if you are not draining properly. Sounds like you need septoplasty.
Most sinus infections are fungal and yes, the best way to get rid of them is to “wash” them out. However, this method can only really be accomplished with sedation and very aggresive irrigating that sometimes involves even a cut and stitches (surgery). An antibiodic that is more effective and will work within 48 hours is Biaxin. Good Luck. It is miserable.
As a fellow sufferer, you should really consider surgery or laser surgery. A friend here locally had laser surgery and they didn’t even have to cut her open or anything. She hasn’t had a problem since.
I cut out dairy products from my diet, take several allergy meds, and neti frequently. The key is to do the neti before you are sick to prevent it.
The problem with antibiotics is that they can make the infection even more aggressive later, from what I’ve heard.
Good luck! I (sometimes literally) feel your pain.
Why I thought to read this while eating lunch, I’ll never know. Bluuuck…
I have a bad sinus infection right now too! So bad that I called off the first 3 days of the week and then went to the doctor today and he has me off until Monday. I just started a new job so my insurance does not kick in until December. But he says in December he is going to check my white blood cell count. He says that could have something to do with why I catch these things so often and why when other other people just get a little annoying cold I get knocked on my butt.
Irrigation, Zertec and not eating much dairy worked for me. I went from 4 sinus infections a year to about 1 every year and a half.
I’m feeling your pain. Yuck.
This going to sound like an infomercial, but a nasal spray called Sinus Buster saved me from chronic sinus infections.
It’s has a bit of pepper in it, which kills the nasties and shocks the nerve endings to relieve pain. It takes getting used to, but using several times a day for a week or two will kill the infection. Then use it occasionally for upkeep.
sinusbuster dot com
Infomercial #2 - I liked xlear for irrigation. Did NOT like the feeling of the stuff trickling down the back of my throat, did like being able to breathe.
Feeling your pain, although in a different form. I’m battling bronchitis for the 3rd time this year. I’m not counting the 4th time when it somehow mutated into pneumonia. Sounds like a lot of people have advice for you. Hope something works because being sick this frequently? Well, it just fucking sucks.
I feel your pain. I’ve also had three sinus infections this year- here in Ohio the causes are different, but the suffering is the same. I was on Levequin (sp?) and zithromax. Zithromax seemed to work better. Right now our 4 yr. old daughter has a stubborn sinus infection- she’s on round #2 of amoxicillin. Doesn’t help that she was misdiagnosed twice- they said it was allergies. So they had me giving her singulair and claritin, which, btw makes it WORSE. It just adds some extra texture to your already impossible phlegm. Her only initial symptom was a cough. No runny nose, no fever, so headaches. The ped said sinus infections manifest differently in kids. Would have been nice to know that, I still think I should have gotten some kind of manual when she was born. Good luck!
Oh- and the ped gave her a script for veramyst which seems to work pretty well to help her breathe. And Delsym is the best cough medicine, IMHO.
Whenever I feel a sinus infection coming on, I take loads of grapeseed. A nice asian lady turned me on to it and I haven’t had an infection in over a year.
Ugh. No advice here, just sympathy. Hope you’re feeling better soon.
This might brighten your day:
http://blog.ruhlman.com/
Oh, I so feel your pain. About 10 years ago, I was getting monthly debilitating sinus infections. I was desperate and agreed to a septoplasty. Changed my life - now I’m down to about one infection a year. Get well soon, and I hope you find long-term relief!
You have my sympathy! Suffered for over two years with chronic sinus infections. Had endoscopic surgery this April to remove severe blockages in sinuses and have never felt better. I do the best on Augmentin (amoxicillin and clavulanic acid)when I need a prescription to clear stuff up. Good luck!
Get those suckers drilled! I had surgery this summer and when I finally healed I could not believe that this is the way normal people breathe - it’s amazing! I also had my uvula removed because of my earthquake generating snoring, but that’s another story. Freaked the hell out of my dentist last week..
Eliminate dairy, or at least cut back on it. I was raised on a steady diet of cheese and milk and had chronic sinus infections throughout my childhood and teen years. I gave up dairy 7 years ago and have had only one sinus infection since then. Seriously, no cheesy sauce is worth the pain of impacted sinuses.
Jon, after having the worst year of my life health-wise, starting with my thyroid giving up, my joints aching so badly I thought I had RA (I just turned 40), my foot acting like it was broken even though the MRIs showed NO PROBLEM, and ending with a brain hemorrhage, I tried a gluten free diet. I tried it primarily not because I was dying, but because my breast-fed 4 month old son was suffering from extreme eczema. After being gluten free for several months, ALL MY SYMPTOMS disappeared, and I feel better than I ever have before. My son, too, now a year, is almost as smoothed skined as babies tend to be traditionally.
May I kindly recommend doing research on Gluten Sensitivity — autoimmune diseases (on the rise) have been linked with Gluten Sensitivity, as have diseases characterized by chronic inflammation.
Good luck.
Jon,
I suffered from this for years until my ENT doctor suggested a surgical sinus cleaning, worked wonders had it done in ‘84 and haven’t had any sinus infections since. Good Luck!
“the boyfriend swears by Nasaline (they have an animated demo on their website). he uses a solution of pickling salt & baking soda with distilled water. been using it for 2 years - no more Nasonex & Claritin. i couldn’t do it - too much like drowning but he is a pro. cutting out dairy and wheat has helped, too. best wishes.”
(originally submitted as a comment to sundrymourning.com, see July 31st post on her website. she ended up using NeilMed and it seemed to work for her - see her August 1, 2007 post).
Snap. Although it’s actually the 4th sinus infection of the past 12 months. Best not to look down. Or eh, tap around your nose and head with remote controls, cutlery etc. Pleading with your own face doesn’t seem to help much either.
I don’t know how all the other people know all those good but scary sounding things.
Go for the surgery as soon as you can. Those antibiotics are going to make your body incredibly immune to future antibiotics when you’re older and really need them.
Also, I totally dig Simply Saline, for what it’s worth.
And, so as to give you some perspective, I suffer from a marvelous condition that causes rapid increases in barometric pressure to give me magnificent, and currently incurable, headaches. So, yay for the sinuses. Y’know, we could have been born 10,000 years in the future, when humans eventually evolve out of their sinus passages altogether, but nooooo, we had to be born during the time of Sigur Ros. Well, glass is half-full if you like.
Feel better!
Hi,
Probably, lots of things help for lots of different people, since we are all unique…but, I will tell you what has helped the most for my chronic infections. I use a type of neti which is more like a squeeze-bottle full of salt water (lots of water pressure and flow!). I use it twice a day like clockwork. Also, my ENT prescribes Avelox, an antibiotic from the quinolone family (like Cipro). Your primary care physician is usually going to prescribe some sort of broad spectrum standard antibiotic, like amoxicillin, but an ENT will usually give you something which historically works better for chronic sinus infections…the right antibiotic really does make a difference. Best of luck to you…
Thanks everybody for the advice. I’m thinking that I’ll need another doctor’s visit and probably referral to an Ear Nose Throat specialist.
Stay tuned.
i suffer from nasal dryness, nosebleeds and sinus infections. when it’s bad, i use the neti pot every night. ionic-breezing my room during the day and using a humidifier at night also helps. i also quit using the heater in the winter– i just bundle up. a tip for travel because god knows there’s so much crap in the recycled air on planes… swab the inside of your nose with some bacitracin ointment. it serves as a barrier from the nasty bacteria in the air.
Like so many else to comment I too had so many sinus infections month after month.
Went to the ENT, did the rounds of drugs and steroids. Finally agreed to the surgery, after the endless pills refused to do anything. It wasn’t an easy recovery, not going to lie about that one. Thing is that after about a month I could breathe like normal people and I haven’t had an infection in the 2 years since the surgery.
I don’t know if they have a better alternative now, but that surgery changed my life.