Sinusitis can often present itself as a combination of relatively harmless symptoms, but it can nonetheless make life very inconvenient. For example, people might suffer from one or more of the following conditions.
- Nasal stuffiness
- Some sort of cloudy or white discharge from the nose, like you perpetually have a cold
- Facial tenderness, maybe some puffiness
- Low-grade fever
- Cough or sore throat
- Headaches, especially when it gets too hot or too cold
If you feel like you or a loved one displays these sinusitis symptoms on a regular basis, you will notice how, although they are tiny irritants, they make the patient’s life terribly inconvenient. One might develop a terrible headache when eating an ice-cream, and also develop a dripping nose on a hot day at the beach. A person suffering from sinusitis might, in general, feel and appear unhealthy, because of a constant low-grade fever. This might affect their ability to work and to socialize. In times like these, when people are slightly paranoid about falling sick, they might get daggers on the street because they are coughing and sneezing. Their appearance might be affected due to the puffiness that arises from inundated sinuses. They also suffer from an overall feeling of malaise.
Treatment methods
Thankfully, there are ways to treat the initial symptoms of sinusitis. Of course, the sinusitis symptoms can be symptoms of other ailments as well. They are fairly common. As a result, displaying sinusitis symptoms alone cannot be proof that one indeed suffers from it. Visit a doctor and ask for an evaluation. There are several tests that can be done to check for sinusitis, such as:
- CT scans and MRIs to evaluate where the inflammation or blockage is
- Physical observation, where a thin tube and a fibre optic light let the doctor observe your sinuses
- Skin allergy test, if the suspected cause of sinuses are allergies
- Culture test, wherein swabs are used to check for bacteria and fungi in cases that do not respond to treatment
Once you have been diagnosed with sinusitis, the treatment options available include:
- Corticosteroids – These might be administered as nasal sprays, nasal mists, or even salines, depending on the severity of your condition. Only in very severe cases will oral corticosteroids be administered because they might cause serious side effects. Be cautious and do not self-medicate.
- Nasal irrigation – This might be done to clean out all irritants and allergies. Again, this has to be a very carefully handled procedure.
- Surgery – In some cases, small amounts of bone or tissue that block the sinus openings are removed to alleviate the problem. The patient might also develop nasal polyps, which are small, non-cancerous growths in the nasal passages. If this is the case, surgery will usually be recommended in order to remove the polyps. When sinusitis occurs due to a fungal infection too, surgery is recommended, because this type of sinusitis does not respond to antibiotic treatment.
Surgery is usually recommended after four to six weeks of having undergone treatment. Moreover, after the surgery, the person might continue to suffer from symptoms and might need to continue to be on antibiotics. Even then, it might take several surgeries to clear up one’s sinuses.
As you can imagine, treatment of sinusitis can be an expensive proposition. However, the difference that it can make to the patient’s life is tremendous. One can always turn to a digital health card to help break down the cost of surgeries and treatment, instead of having to suffer from such a condition. For example, with the Bajaj Finserv Digital Health EMI Network Card, you can break down your medical costs into pocket-sized EMIs. Best of all, this digital health card covers not just hospitalization and surgical expenses but also covers diagnostic bills, and all those big bills chalked up at the pharmacy during the treatment.