A New Approach For Chronic Sinusitis

A New Approach For Chronic Sinusitis

If you are a person who seems to get a sinus infection every time you come down with a slight cold, you might be interested in research being done by the University of Buffalo in upstate New York. Doctors performing this research believe that chronic sinus infections may be caused by an immune reaction to normal airborne fungi.

Many people simply do not respond well to standard treatments for sinus infections.

I was one of those people, and every time I got a tickle in my throat, I seemed to develop a cold and then a full blown sinus infection that lasted several weeks. I was usually prescribed antibiotics by the doctor, and this normally occurred at least three or four times per year.

The U. of Buffalo researchers are trying to show that an overreaction of the immune system response to common types of fungi can lead to chronic sinus infections. This over-reaction causes the membranes of the sinus cavity to become damaged, and this allows places for bacteria to accumulate and grow.

The researchers have done double blind studies using people who have chronic sinusitis. They gave one group an antifungal treatment and another group a placebo and checked the people after certain periods of time. It seems the chronic sinus sufferers who received the actual treatment fared significantly better than those who got the placebo.

As is the case with most new medical concepts, many doctors remain skeptical. More research is underway and it will take a long time to convince the medical community that a new cause and treatment for sinusitis is the standard. Only time and further research will point the way to a new treatment that is recognized widely.

Another more indirect approach to this problem is for chronic sinus sufferers to perform nasal irrigation daily. Basically washing out your nose with a simple saline solution each day will clear out a lot of the dried and accumulated mucus in your nasal passages and sinuses. The fungi that appear to cause the immune system reaction get caught in mucus and become lodged there, so removing the mucus can help.

I personally have been doing daily nasal irrigation for almost ten years now, and in all that time I have only had a few sinus infections. As stated above, I used to get that many every year. I still have vivid memories of the awful headaches I had deep behind my eyes and nose. It is a terrible feeling. I also had two sinus operations. So if you suffer from chronic sinusitis, you might want to give nasal irrigation a try and find out about the U. of Buffalo/Mayo Clinic research. I use a special nasal irrigation machine, but some people use a neti pot. I tried the latter but prefer the nasal irrigator.