Sinus Dilation & Other Stuff

Last Friday, five days ago, I had a sinus dilation procedure in the office of my ENT (ear, nose & throat doctor). For about six weeks prior to the procedure, I had terrible headaches almost everyday that nothing would help. Not nasal steroids, sinus washes, antibiotics, Tylenol, pain pills, nothing. You should really feel sorry for Frank. One, for having to put up with me and two, because I have just not been myself. I have never been one to have headaches, especially not ongoing, seemingly never ending, headaches. Am I healed? Not yet, but I am well on the way. Has this procedure taken care of my sinus problems? The verdict is still out since I still have some occasional pain from the procedure, but the never ending headache seems to be gone, for which I am truly thankful.

Until recently I had never heard of sinus dilation. Here is a site that explains what it is and how it is done. We have a neat doctor that let Frank stay with me and watch the whole thing. Some things hurt and some didn't. The doctor dilated both of my frontal sinuses and both maxillary or what I call cheek bone sinuses. He calls it bone cracking, and sometimes it sounded like that was the case. When he got to the left maxillary sinus he poked and prodded and poked and 
prodded and couldn't get in. He said something about a flap in the way, so he cut it out. I think he actually had to cut a hole to get in and when he did, a stream of white, creamy ick came out, which he expected. The CT scan they did prior to the procedure showed the left maxillary as solid instead of with any air in it. He cleaned everything out of there he could.

So now I am healing. It is still uncomfortable to bend over to do much so the garden is patiently sitting out there waiting for me, just doing it's thing all on it's own. I think the aphids are having a hey day. By next week, I hope to diminish their population greatly. We have made cheese a couple of times, it doesn't take much physical effort, I just had to concentrate more to make sure I didn't skip a step.

The new online program I am using for my contract work with the school district, which is statewide, is really taking a lot of time. Since it is new, there are many, many data fields that have to be populated for each student, and of course with school starting and families moving around, there are many new students to contend with as well as the ones that are returning. I have spent so much time on the computer today, at one point I had this picture of a ball and chain coming out of the laptop attached around my ankle. Silly, huh? It's not hard work, just time consuming. 

It's always good to use your mind to learn new things, but right now it would be more fun to research greenhouse plants for winter. Soon enough the school work will calm back down and I will do just that. Frank and I are already talking about the plants we want to experiment with over the winter. It will be exciting to be able to walk out there and harvest fresh food for the table in December or January.

Since I have been in recovery mode and busy with school work, we are behind on answering the comments and emails on the blog. Please bear with us, we will respond, it just may not be quite as timely as it has been. We really do enjoy hearing from you and appreciate the time you take to share with all of us.

I know you are watching the financial news, the news of yet more hatred and murder being splashed in our faces, the news of countries flexing their military muscles and the news of natural and man made devastation around the globe. Ponder long and hard what you need to be doing for the near and far future. We sure are. We think about it, talk about it, and pray about it every single day. 

Until next time - Fern

Is Your Head Stuffy?

I do my best not to use medications for my stuffy sinuses. There are times that I'm okay, but many times my sinus cavities are just stuffy, and if I don't take care of them, I am very prone to sinus infections, even after surgery to decrease that problem. For a number of years I used over the counter medications such as Sudafed (before the clamp down because of use to make Methamphetamine), Muscinex (which works well, but affects my whole body), and Flonase (Fluticasone, generic prescription) which is a steroid nose spray. It was just easier to take a pill or inhale a mist than to try something different.

We had a great ENT (Ear, nose and throat doctor) in Alaska that introduced us to a sinus wash. The air in Alaska is very, very dry and that made us even more prone to sinus infections, since it tended to really dry out our nasal passages. Once we started using the sinus wash, it helped a lot. 

There are several different types of sinus wash techniques. The Neti Pot has been around for a long time. It's not something we have tried, even though for a while, Frank just used a bowl of saline in the shower. Once I got used to the really weird feeling of squirting water up my nose, I prefer a sinus wash bottle. It is simple, quick and effective.

The first sinus wash bottle we bought had individual packets to mix in each application. When we realized the contents were salt and baking soda, we started mixing our own. Before we used the last packet, we measured the contents. A slightly heaping 1/4 teaspoon works just fine. So now we fill a little bowl with salt and add a pinch of baking soda.

The directions for use are printed on the bottle. This is our backup, just in case the original one finally bites the dust. We have been using it for nine years. After each use, we rinse it with hot water. One thing we learned was to leave the bottle sitting upright with the lid off between uses, just for air circulation. Periodically, it can be cleaned with a vinegar solution. When cleaning, a narrow tube cleaning brush works on the straw portion and a regular bottle brush works well on the bottle.

A friend asked me if we used sterile water when we mixed up the solution. Our ENT indicated tap water is fine for this procedure, even following sinus surgery. I use warm water as close to body temperature as possible. Cold water just doesn't seem to work as well.

After we started using the sinus wash we found out that a young lady we knew swore by them. She was a very active, athletic young woman that had serious allergies and asthma. Once she discovered and started using a sinus wash, she had fewer asthma attacks and was able to decrease the medication she was taking for these two issues. She found that washing out the irritants that kicked up her allergies not only helped alleviate some of those symptoms, but in turn, decreased her asthma reactions as well. I don't know if this would be the case for others since I do not have any serious allergies, or suffer from asthma, but I did think it was very interesting.

Using a sinus wash instead of pills or nose spray, is a little more work and not always convenient. It is definitely easier to swallow a pill or squirt a mist in my nose. But in our efforts to decrease our chemical intake, this is a low-tech, no medication option. And along those lines, when the time comes when we don't have easy access to the plethora of over the counter medications, this may be a very important option. If we have access to water and salt, we can treat allergies, sinus congestion, colds and any other ailment that comes along to decrease the air flow in our nasal passages. Is it a cure all? No. Is it a sustainable way to help increase our health without bombarding our bodies with yet more chemicals? Yes. Happy breathing.

Until next time - Fern