Sinus news

Nasal Irrigation Can Help Keep Sinuses Cavities Clear Of Mucus and Other Irritants [News Release]

Any per­son who has to deal with chronic sinus infec­tions under­stands when one is start­ing to strike… just by know­ing the warn­ing signs of the con­di­tion.  Bay­lor Col­lege of Med­i­cine doc­tors said know­ing the warn­ing signs means know­ing when to use pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures like nasal irri­ga­tion. These pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures will decrease the symp­toms or keep the infec­tion from becom­ing worse.irrigation of nasal sinus infection

What is nasal irri­ga­tion? It’s the cleans­ing of the nasal cav­ity using ster­ile salt water to rinse out any debris or mucus from the nose and sinus cavity.

Accord­ing to Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Oto­laryn­gol­ogy at BCM Dr. Mas Takashima, peo­ple become sus­cep­ti­ble to sinus infec­tions if they’ve recently suf­fered with a cold or flu or have aller­gies. These things will cause the nasal pas­sages to become swollen and inflamed, which makes them that much more likely to attain a viral or bac­te­r­ial infection.

To keep mois­ture in the nose, flush­ing it out with salt­wa­ter can help the sinuses func­tion right and elim­i­nate thick mucus debris that’s block­ing them. The salt has the capa­bil­ity to bring mois­ture out from these tis­sues so the mucosa will reduce in sign, which enables a per­son to breathe eas­ier.  Plus, salt has the nat­ural antibac­te­r­ial prop­er­ties along with the abil­ity to com­bat infections.

Takashima said folks tend to believe that vit­a­min C will keep them from get­ting an infec­tion. How­ever, there is no proof that using vit­a­min C works. Nasal irri­ga­tion can eas­ily be done at home and is very beneficial.

There are other home reme­dies out there that have not been effec­tive in keep­ing sinus infec­tion at bay: gar­lic, lysine and Echi­nacea.  Takashima said many believed those reme­dies have helped them; but, a per­son can wash their hands on a reg­u­lar basis and make a big­ger difference.

He said humans carry germs on their hands and, by keep­ing them clean, you decrease the chance of spread­ing the bac­te­ria to the sen­si­tive nasal pas­sages. Takashima said any per­son suf­fer­ing from a sinus infec­tion should see a spe­cial­ist before start­ing a home rem­edy regimen.

 

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Bad Breath And Sinus? [News Release]

bad breath by sinus infection?Have you ever got that nasty feel­ing in your mouth where you know you brushed your teeth but if feels like you haven’t and your breath stinks? Believe it or not, not all bad breath comes from just the mouth… it can also come from your sinuses. And, there are sev­eral ways in which sinuses can cause that nasty, smelly breath:

- Post nasal drip
Sinusi­tis
– Mouth breath­ing
– Cleft palate

Post Nasal Drip

Post nasal drop is that extra bit of mucus that drips to the back of your mouth, which can be caused by aller­gies, colds and even bac­te­r­ial infec­tions.  When there is an extra bit of mucus, it causes an envi­ron­ment that allows bac­te­ria to thrive – caus­ing the bad breath.

Sinus Infec­tion

Sinusi­tis is much like post nasal drip in the way it causes bad breath; but, it’s just the fancy name for a sinus infec­tion. When you have this con­di­tion, the sinuses become inflamed, which will cause the mucus to stop cir­cu­lat­ing and accu­mu­late. When this hap­pens, bac­te­ria can thrive and cause that filthy odor. Sinusi­tis can be caused by a num­ber of things like colds, aller­gies and a tooth infection.

Mouth Breath­ing

Mouth breath­ing is actu­ally a con­di­tion where the kinds of bad breath will over­lap such as dry mouth and mouth breath­ing. There are a num­ber of issues that can cause some­one to breathe their mouth, lead­ing to the con­di­tion dry mouth. When saliva is not present in the mouth, stinky bac­te­ria can be a result of the issue.

Cleft Palate

Cleft palate is a con­di­tion that pro­duces a region that allows bac­te­ria to grow and thrive with­out being dis­turbed, result­ing in bad breath.

Solu­tions To Bad Breath

Solu­tions… there are many of them but they’re not a one-size fits all for bad breath. The rea­son is that bad breath has a num­ber of causes, which means treat­ment for them can vary.  Remem­ber, just chew­ing gum or suck­ing on a mint is only cov­er­ing the prob­lem, not cur­ing it. To bat­tle the bad breath, you need to fight the actual cause behind it, regard­less of what it is. You might need to take antibi­otics or have surgery (although that’s usu­ally a last resort).

If you suf­fer with chronic bad breath, you should speak with either your doc­tor or den­tist to find out what is caus­ing it and begin treat­ment right away.

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Antibiotics Don’t Help In The Treatment Of Sinus Infections [ News Release ]

Accord­ing to St. Louis’ Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine inves­ti­ga­tors, antibi­otics are not any bet­ter than inac­tive place­bos to lessen the symp­toms peo­ple feel from sinus infections.antibiotics for sinus infection?

Oto­laryn­gol­ogy pro­fes­sor Dr. Jay F. Pic­cir­illo said patients are not get­ting any bet­ter quicker nor have less sinus infec­tions when tak­ing antibi­otics. The results show antibi­otics are unnec­es­sary for the most basic sinus infec­tions, as folks tend to get bet­ter them­selves.  This study can be found in Feb­ru­ary 15’s Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion edition.

Accord­ing to the authors, in the U.S. alone, nearly one in five pre­scrip­tions for antibi­otics is writ­ten for sinus infec­tions. Now, there are a num­ber of drugs that don’t work on bac­te­ria. And, because of that it’s impor­tant if this is an effec­tive kind of treat­ment. Accord­ing to the research, the results are not effective.

Research Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Med­i­cine Dr. Jane M. Gar­butt said antibi­otics are being over­pre­scribed in the primary-care set­ting.  How­ever, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion is lead­ing a move­ment to improve the pru­dent use of antibi­otics.  Gar­butt said the study was done to pro­vide sci­en­tific proof for doc­tors so that they can explain to their patients why antibi­otics isn’t likely going to help with their acute sinus infection.

Researchers sug­gest deal­ing with the symp­toms – cough, con­ges­tion and pain — using a wait and see method to deter­mine if any fur­ther treat­ment is needed instead of using antibiotics.

166 adults were involved with the study; every one of their symp­toms fit the acute sinus infec­tion cri­te­ria that was rec­om­mended by an expert panel with the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion. For par­tic­i­pa­tion, a patient’s symp­toms needed to be cat­e­go­rized as mod­er­ate, severe or very severe. They also have to report ten­der­ness or pain in the sinuses and face and have a last­ing nasal dis­charge of seven to 28 days. Patients with seri­ous com­pli­ca­tion or chronic sinus infec­tions did not get included in the study.

Patients were given either a 10-day course of antibi­otics such as amox­i­cillin or a placebo. Whether they got amox­i­cillin or not, every sin­gle patient obtained med­ica­tion for their cough, fever, con­ges­tion and reliev­ing pain.

Researchers judged the symp­toms of each patient at the begin­ning of the treat­ment then another three, seven, 10 and 28 days later.  After three days, there was no change between the placebo and antibi­otic groups. After seven days, minor improve­ment was seen with the antibi­otic group. Gar­butt said the minor change was implau­si­ble to show any major relief from the symptoms.

By day 10, about 80 per­cent of the patients in the amox­i­cillin and placebo groups con­veyed that their symp­toms were either cured or very sig­nif­i­cantly improved.  There was also no dif­fer­ence in the placebo or antibi­otic groups in the num­ber of med­ica­tions the patients used to deal with the cough, con­ges­tion, pain and fever.

Gar­butt said sinusi­tis is a nasty dis­ease with real symp­toms. Peo­ple feel mis­er­able and will miss work, she said. She also said there is no easy answer to what will be ben­e­fi­cial to treat­ing sinusi­tis espe­cially if antibi­otics are not the answer.

 

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Acute Sinusitis: How It Affects The Human Body and How You Can Prevent It [ News Release ]

You may not real­ize it but sinusi­tis tends to result in emo­tional anguish, caus­ing a dis­rup­tion to nor­mal activ­ity rou­tines. This is espe­cially true if the sinusi­tis has spread to the brain, as an infec­tion can be fatal.  With the help of Dr. Rajesh Kr Bhard­waj, Head of ENY at Artemis Health Insti­tute, peo­ple can finally get an under­stand­ing of what acute sinusi­tis actu­ally is.

What Is Acute Sinusitis?

The major­ity of folks have a real hard time under­stand­ing the actual mean­ing behind sinusi­tis. In fact, the proper ter­mi­nol­ogy is called paranasal sinusi­tis, which are filled paired cav­i­ties sur­round­ing the nose. These are found in the eyes, cheeks, fore­head and deep within the head.  It’s believed that the sphe­noid sinus alle­vi­ates the weight of the human facial bones and skull. They also help in the humid­i­fi­ca­tion of moved air and improve the human voice tone.

How Can Acute Sinusi­tis Affect Over­all Health?

Acute sinusi­tis is the inflam­ma­tion of sinuses. And, when inflamed, the sinus cav­i­ties are filled with pus. This tends to hap­pen when you have a cold as well. Now, a sim­ple “viral” sinusi­tis will cause a num­ber of symp­toms includ­ing but not lim­ited to:

- Nasal congestion

- Fever

- Headache

- Post nasal drip

- Cheek heaviness

- Heavy infected nasal discharge

If it’s not treated with suit­able med­ica­tion – antibi­otics, steam inhala­tion, nasal spray – it can cause the infec­tion to become aggra­vated and spread to other regions.

When you’re sick and unsure of what you’re suf­fer­ing with, it’s time to look at your symp­toms. There are some clas­sic acute sinusi­tis symp­toms you need to be mind­ful of.

- Nasal discharge

- Loss of smell

- Bad breath

- Headache/pain in the face or behind the eyes

- Sore throat

- Cough

- Fatigue

How Can You Pre­vent Acute Sinusitis

Acute sinusi­tis is typ­i­cally pro­duced by a bac­te­ria or virus. The ini­tial infec­tion is typ­i­cally the result of a viral infec­tion with a sec­ondary infec­tion being bac­te­r­ial. If you’re suf­fer­ing from acute sinusi­tis, you need to avoid either div­ing or fly­ing.  A clin­i­cal exam is plenty to deter­mine if you have an acute sinusi­tis. How­ever, blood work, CT scan and nasal dis­charge exam may also be con­ducted. When med­ica­tion fails, you might need to undergo a drainage procedure.

A Look At Home Reme­dies To Treat Acute Sinusitis

If you’re suf­fer­ing with acute sinusi­tis but want to avoid going to the doc­tor, you do have some home reme­dies you can try, which include sit­ing in a sauna or using steam inhala­tion. When you have no infec­tion, you can try the ‘Jal Neti’ natur­opa­thy prac­tice. This works by breath­ing in slightly warm water into both nos­trils and blow­ing it out gently.

Don’t do any vig­or­ous activ­i­ties such as putting pieces of string into your sinus cav­i­ties to clean them out. After all, this kind of activ­ity requires a good deal of prac­tice and train­ing and may not even work for you.

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University of Maryland Medical Center on Keeping Sinuses Clear

“Treat­ing chronic sinusi­tis can be just as com­plex as diag­nos­ing it. Antibi­otics are the main weapon used to fight the con­di­tion. The type that’s pre­scribed depends on many fac­tors includ­ing patient aller­gies, sinus cul­ture results and the most likely type of bac­terium caus­ing the infection.

The Amer­i­can Rhi­no­logic Soci­ety says other med­ica­tions that may be pre­scribed include oral decon­ges­tants, mucus-thinning drugs, top­i­cal steroids for the nose, sys­temic steroids like pred­nisone and nasal saline washes. Treat­ment of acute sinusi­tis is usu­ally pre­scribed for a few days. For chronic sinusi­tis, treat­ment can last for up to eight to 12 weeks.

CLEARING THE CONFUSION: Because chronic sinusi­tis can be com­pli­cated to diag­nose and dif­fi­cult to track, researchers have devel­oped a new way to do both using a sim­ple blood test. After blood sam­ples are taken, sci­en­tists ana­lyze pro­tein expres­sion in the blood using a tech­nol­ogy called surface-enhanced laser/desorption ion­iza­tion time-of-flight mass spec­troscopy, or SELDI-TOF-MS.

The tech­nol­ogy can quickly iden­tify unique pro­tein pro­files of con­di­tions like sinusi­tis. The pro­tein pro­files act like fin­ger­prints found in the body.

In the study, researchers found the tech­nique detected pro­tein pro­files involv­ing patients with chronic sinusi­tis and sep­a­rated them from healthy patients with 77.1 per­cent sen­si­tiv­ity and 65.8 per­cent speci­ficity. Experts hope to even­tu­ally use SELDI-TOF-MS to assist in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of breast, lung, ovar­ian, pan­cre­atic and prostate cancer. ”

Read the whole story here …

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