What Are The Signs of a Sinus Infection?

Sinus infections are vicious and painful disorders. Often the symptoms begin slowly, but quickly graduate to terrible pain, discomfort, and sensory effects. Understanding how to identify and treat sinus infections is essential if you want to find lasting help for this common disorder.

Symptoms of Sinus Infection

Sinus infections can present in a number of ways, but their telltale symptom is pain. As mucus builds up within the walls of your facial sinus cavities, the result is often a sharp and continuous pain that worsens when you tip your head forward. This pain can arise in your head or cheeks, and it may even extend down to your teeth. When sinus infections grow severe, OTC pain medications barely make a dent.

The second most common symptom of a sinus infection is pressure, which brings its own host of miseries. Many patients find their faces throbbing, while others find that the buildup is so intense that any contact to the face, no matter how slight, can trigger a massive avalanche of pain and distress.

You may also experience extra mucus discharge, particularly green mucus. As your body fights the infection and pushes back against all that pressure, more mucus than usual may be expressed through the nose and down the throat. This common symptom leads some people to believe they have a cold, but when it is accompanied by the pain and pressure outlined above, you can be sure your sinuses are to blame.

Sinus infections also produce coughing, especially a wet, productive cough. This is also due to mucus production, caused by your body’s high-intensity response to infection.

The final diagnostic symptom for sinus infection is longevity: if your symptoms last for more than two weeks, and they seem to be getting worse, not better, that’s a strong indication that you’re looking at a bacterial infection.

How to Treat a Sinus Infection

Your Los Angeles ENT can help you get rid of a sinus infection through antibiotics, steam inhalation, rinses, or occasionally steroids. If you have a tendency to get multiple sinus infections per year, then you may want to consider septal surgery, endoscopic sinus surgery, or balloon sinuplasty for a more permanent fix.

The Los Angeles Sinus Institute offers state of the art treatment for sinus infections and sinusitis, including a cutting edge diagnostic and imaging suite right in our office. Call today for an appointment.