Re: Sinus Problems

Posted by Hal/ Eastern WA on May 13, 2014 at 13:04:06 from (97.115.160.130):

In Reply to: Sinus Problems posted by showcrop on May 13, 2014 at 10:05:04:

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!

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