December 22, 2007

SINUS PROBLEMS? Wash them away! Can it really be that simple? (Via NewsAlert).

UPDATE: Maybe it is. I've gotten a lot of emails like this one from Evan Maxwell:

I doubted, then I tried and damn, it works.

I've had sinus infections at least once a year for more than a decade. I started the first of three surgeries to correct the problem but quit after one, once I learned the process was marginally successful for most folks and often needed to be repeated every three or four years. So I treated with antibiotics and had a low-grade problem most of the time.

Then my old college roommate, a vet, prescribed NeilMed, which is kind of a Neti pot on steroids, using a plastic bottle to boost the pressure. I haven't had a sinus outbreak in almost two years and my breathing generally is better.

Once a day seems to work but I think you can use the system more often if you want.

Yogis are no fools, even if they dress funny sometimes.

That's true.

MORE: An email from a "longtime reader who is an ENT doc." Click "read more" to read it.

Email follows:

Longtimer reader who is an ENT doc that cares, and at times operates, on patients with sinus disease.

I love saline in the nose in any form. I have a pile of Neilmed starter packs that I give out to my sinus patients. At conferences we discuss frequency, tonicity and volume of the saline, efficacy is established. The primary function of your nose is to warm and humidify air for your lungs. The cold, dry air of winter may be too much for your nose to handle. Saline assists your nose by adding moisture and rinsing thickened secretions. (This is also helpful for colds and seasonal allergies-"the solution to pollution is dilution"). Anyone with any nose compaint leaves my office with a recommendation for humidity (especially in the bedroom) and sailine in some form (usually an OTC spray eg Ocean, Ayr or the pharmacy knockoff if there is no significant sinus disease).

The flipside, however, is the tremendous overdiagnosis of "sinusitis" and sinus headaches. There was a study offering the first 100 patients with sinus headaches (self or physician diagnosed) free treatment. 3 had sinus disease. The rest had some viariant of migraine or tension headache. This jibes with my experience of treating folks 'fed up' this their chronic sinusitis. It also explains why something as simple as saline can work where antibiotics fail. "Sinus" is a wastebasket term that can mean headaches, congestion, post nasal drip, nasal obstruction, allergies, or real sinus disase (with or without polyps). Multiple issues with no one size fits all treatment.

Obviously every case is different and this oversimplifies a complex problem. But saline is a win-win. It often helps and very rarely does any harm.

Good to know. And yeah, I thought my migraines were sinus headaches for years.