Chronic Sinus Infection
Back in 2005 I contracted a nasty sinus infection. The only previous infection was 1983 while traveling in India, and a single course of antibiotics took care of it, and the food poisoning too. This time I waited and hoped it would go away, as I disliked the idea of rinsing the sinuses (yuck!), and was by now wary of antibiotics due the “carpet bombing” nature of them, wiping out beneficial bacteria as well as the troublesome one.
Months later, while lying on a chiropractor’s table, she described a patient whose sinus infection had migrated to his heart, with devastating consequences. That lit a fire under me and I began using a neti pot regularly. Apparently this bacteria was by now firmly ensconced and I couldn’t make it go away. My MD at the time prescribed an antibiotic, and I questioned why he didn’t send a specimen to the lab. He said it’s difficult to get a good specimen; this broad spectrum antibiotic should do the trick. Well, no it didn’t, and neither did the next FOUR antibiotics he prescribed! That’s when I went to another MD who in 5 minutes gave me a referral to a specialist who, in the first two minutes, used a swab to take a specimen and send it off. This time, we got a MATCH and the infection was finally gone! How I regret letting MD #1 play antibiotic roulette.
That was the first of several years of sinus infections, and I became best friends with my neti pot, even taking it on vacations. Especially on vacations, in fact, as sharing air space with fellow travelers on airplanes, buses, and commuter trains seemed like asking for trouble. I always added sea salt that was free of additives, and usually added grapefruit seed extract. The challenge was to use filtered water that had been brought to a boil, then cooled to a suitable warm temperature. There are too many tales of people getting worse infections from rinsing their sinuses with straight tap water.
The next ENT doctor’s office saw a polyp, so really wanted a CT Scan of my sinuses. A little research confirmed that that radiation would go through not just the sinuses but my eyes and the front of my brain! They insisted, though, that treating one visible polyp when many more could be inside was a bad idea.
More research lead me to another ENT whose opinion was that what they called a polyp was actually just an anomaly from when I had nasal reconstructive surgery decades ago. He did what I now considered standard procedure — use a flexible scope to locate the source of the infection, take a swab of that area, and wait for the lab to match the bacteria with a selection of suitable antibiotics. After finishing the prescription, return for a checkup.
When next I was certain of an infection, and unable to cure it myself, I sought out the youngest ENT that I could find, who had a reasonable number of good reviews. When I made that office visit, I found his procedure identical to the older doctors’ — look, sample, prescribe, follow up.
After several years of this routine, I was in a progressive doctor’s office for another reason and complained that I saw the same thick white discharge that I’d seen before, in the usual right nostril, and that I dreaded yet another antibiotic. He suggest that we assume that I’m among the 90% of chronic sinus sufferers who have an underlying fungal infection. We began a protocol of anti-fungal herbs plus immune boosters and in a few days the thick white mucus slowed and then stopped! I completed the treatment, and HALLELUJAH I’ve been free of the dreaded infection ever since!
