Housatonic Valley News

• Some common symptoms of sinusitis include nasal inflammation, reduced sense of taste or smell, nasal discharge, difficulty breathing through your nose, and pain, tenderness, or swelling around the cheeks, eyes, nose or forehead.
• Symptoms that some sufferers might find surprising could include ear pain, bad breath, fatigue, or aching in your upper jaw and teeth.
• There are nonsurgical treatments available to help with sinusitis symptoms, including balloon sinuplasty.

Dr. Robert Weiss of CT ENT said sinusitis sufferers can experience more symptoms than congestion, including facial and teeth pain.

“One of the biggest reasons people experience facial pain with a sinus problem is the sinus is blocked off,” Weiss told Housatonic Valley News. “It can't equalize pressure, and outside or atmospheric pressure is always changing. We don't realize it because our sinuses and our ears are adjusting right away when they're healthy. So, we don't know that the pressure changed by even a few microbes. But if you block a sinus or an ear, you're going to feel that pressure and usually feel uncomfortable. It's usually painful.”

Weiss also noted that generalized inflammation irritates nerves which causes pain.

“Nerves don't like to be inflamed,” he said. “They would talk back at you if you inflamed them. And that's another reason people get pain around the teeth. The upper teeth sit right underneath the cheek, and your sinuses are right there.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, acute sinusitis can not only make it difficult to breathe through your nose, but it could make the area around your eyes and face swollen which could lead to throbbing facial pain and headaches.

While chronic sinusitis can include the usual symptoms that everyone expects like nasal inflammation, a stuffy or runny nose, and postnasal drainage, other symptoms can include pain or swelling in the face, a sore throat, bad breath, loss of smell and taste and fatigue.

NHS Inform advises people to see a physician if they are experiencing symptoms that aren't improving for more than a week. An ENT specialist might initially recommend a saline solution or over-the-counter medication and then might prescribe antibiotics or corticosteroid spray if there isn’t an improvement in symptoms. If those treatments do not resolve the sinusitis symptoms, the ENT specialist might suggest sinus surgery.

Some sinusitis sufferers might be unaware of nonsurgical treatments that are available, including balloon sinuplasty. A balloon sinuplasty is an in-office procedure that's simple and only takes about an hour, according to Entellus Medical. The preparation takes about 30 minutes and involves anesthetics being applied to the nose for more comfort. A thin instrument with a balloon is then guided through the sinus and then gently inflated for five seconds with saline. The balloon is removed when the sinuses open.

If you’re interested in learning more about treating sinusitis, please take this Sinus Self-Assessment Quiz.