Bav­ina Sookdeo

"Oh no, my si­nus­es are 'act­ing up' again!" Un­der­stand­ing the mis­ery of this state­ment would be dif­fi­cult for any­one who does know the pain and frus­tra­tion of hav­ing si­nus trou­ble. Hav­ing si­nus prob­lems can make your life mis­er­able. For those of you who do know the pain, this ar­ti­cle may present you with some re­lief. So what ex­act­ly are these (some­times) painful things we call the si­nus­es? The si­nus­es are open, air-filled cav­i­ties lo­cat­ed with­in the fa­cial bones and skull. They are lo­cat­ed in four dif­fer­ent ar­eas and are most­ly found in pairs. Most of us have four sets of si­nus­es which are: the max­il­lary si­nus­es – lo­cat­ed un­der the eyes and are usu­al­ly the largest of all si­nus­es, the eth­moid si­nus­es – lo­cat­ed be­tween the eyes, the sphe­noid si­nus­es which are lo­cat­ed in the sphe­noid bone (lo­cat­ed mid­line in the skull, deep be­hind the nose) and the frontal si­nus­es - lo­cat­ed in the frontal bone, which lies in the fore­head area of the skull. If not tak­en care of, a sim­ple si­nus prob­lem could lead to an in­fec­tion and ul­ti­mate­ly si­nusi­tis which is the in­flam­ma­tion of the si­nus­es. This in­flam­ma­tion may be con­fined to one si­nus cav­i­ty by it­self or all of the si­nus­es. Si­nusi­tis can be brought on by the com­mon cold, nasal al­ler­gies, nasal polyps, var­i­ous fun­gi, cys­tic fi­bro­sis and oth­er anatom­i­cal vari­a­tions of the nose and si­nus cav­i­ties. There are two types of si­nusi­tis – acute and chron­ic. In chron­ic si­nusi­tis, there may be no pain or fever and per­sons with chron­ic si­nusi­tis usu­al­ly have fa­cial full­ness. With acute si­nusi­tis, how­ev­er, per­sons usu­al­ly have fever, fa­cial pain, and a run­ny nose.

Ac­cord­ing to one Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er, Dr. Ma­hesh Pa­tel, "It is very com­mon for pa­tients to come with si­nus prob­lems." The doc­tor, who has been prac­tic­ing in Mon­trose since 1990, stat­ed that the cas­es range from mod­er­ate to se­vere. When asked if the num­ber of cas­es have grown since he start­ed prac­tic­ing there, the doc­tor con­firmed that there has been a great in­crease in cas­es. What is re­spon­si­ble for this in­crease? "The en­vi­ron­ment in which we live is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing be­cause of pol­lu­tion," Pa­tel point­ed out. He al­so not­ed that in times gone by, a lot of pa­tients would come to him with si­nus prob­lems when cane start­ed flow­er­ing, how­ev­er, since the cane in­dus­try in Trinidad is not what it used to be (and that has since been ruled out), it is clear that a ma­jor cause is the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing en­vi­ron­ment. So is there hope for si­nus suf­fer­ers? In­deed there is. There are sev­er­al types of med­ica­tion which can be used. A phar­ma­cist since 1997, Natasha Singh-Ram­sook, who works at the Mon­trose Phar­ma­cy told Wom­an­Wise about med­ica­tion si­nus suf­fer­ers can use, adding that si­nus prob­lems af­fect about 65 to 80% of pa­tients com­ing in­to the phar­ma­cy. The sug­gest­ed med­ica­tions are:

• An­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry - Nasal Sprays Cor­ti­cos­teroids (com­mon­ly called steroids) which re­duce the in­flam­ma­to­ry re­sponse in the nasal pas­sages and air­ways

• Pain Re­liev­ers - Ac­eta­minophen and NSAIDS (Non-Steroidal an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry drugs) like As­pirin, Ibupro­fen and Naprox­en.

Singh-Ram­sook warned that "Pa­tients with sen­si­tiv­i­ty to As­pirin, GI and bleed­ing dis­or­ders and those who are preg­nant and breast-feed­ing SHOULD NOT USE NSAIDS." "An­ti­his­t­a­mines which re­lieve the itch­ing and sneez­ing can be used. These in­clude Diphen­hy­dramine, Doxlyamine, Lo­ra­ti­dine, Ce­t­i­rizine, Chlor­pheni­ramine and Fex­ofe­na­dine."The phar­ma­cist added "De­con­ges­tants can al­so be used to re­lieve nasal con­ges­tion due to in­flamed si­nus­es. These in­clude Pseu­doephedrine and Phenyle­phrine. In ad­di­tion, Im­munother­a­py com­mon­ly re­ferred to as al­ler­gy shots can be giv­en most­ly for pa­tients with se­vere sea­son­al al­ler­gies." If you've ex­haust­ed the list of OTC med­ica­tion, you can turn to herbal reme­dies. Many claim that herbal reme­dies have helped them im­mense­ly. Pep­per­mint is one herb that I can vouch for; it has helped to some ex­tent to calm my rag­ing si­nus­es. In ad­di­tion, sev­er­al peo­ple in­ter­viewed (who have si­nus prob­lems), claim that grape­fruit has helped them a lot. One herbal­ist al­so told Wom­an­Wise that herbs such as fenu­greek, echi­nacea, gin­ger root, gold­enseal, net­tle, olive leaf and rose hips may help si­nus suf­fer­ers since they help loosen phlegm and re­duce con­ges­tion. "Echi­nacea al­so helps to boost the im­mune sys­tem and Eu­ca­lyp­tus is an­oth­er old rem­e­dy which will help," the herbal­ist said. When asked about my rem­e­dy – the pep­per­mint – the herbal­ist con­firmed that drink­ing pep­per­mint helps to min­imise ir­ri­ta­tion in the mu­cous mem­branes with the si­nus­es. In­ter­est­ing­ly, yo­ga is an­oth­er rem­e­dy for si­nus prob­lems. A pop­u­lar yo­ga in­struc­tor in Trinidad point­ed out dur­ing an in­ter­view that there are sev­er­al ex­er­cis­es one can per­form to clear the si­nus­es. Two of them are: the Ka­paal Bhaati and the Bhaas­tri­ka.

The Ka­paal Bhaati (which means the cleans­ing of the skull) is very short (as in once for every heart beat). For this ex­er­cise you pull in your stom­ach and as you do so the air will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly come out through the nos­trils. Re­peat this for five min­utes. With this ex­er­cise you con­cen­trate on your stom­ach, not on the breath­ing. For the Bhaas­trikaa (which means bel­lows) you take a deep breath in, then blow out all the air in short spurts (avoid swelling of the cheeks) in or­der to get all the 'stale' air out of the lungs. Re­peat this five times. With each ex­pul­sion the body should au­to­mat­i­cal­ly bend for­ward in or­der to get out as much air as pos­si­ble. When do­ing both the Ka­paal Bhaati and the Bhaas­tri­ka, one should sit on a chair or the floor and keep hands on the knees while eyes are closed. Al­so, the Ka­paal Bhaati and the Bhaas­tri­ka are to be done ear­ly in the morn­ing be­fore eat­ing or two hours af­ter you have eat­en. Ac­cord­ing to the yo­ga in­struc­tor, these ex­er­cis­es are very pow­er­ful and they get rid of phlegm. They are very suc­cess­ful in help­ing per­sons with si­nus prob­lems. In or­der to do these ex­er­cis­es prop­er­ly, it is ad­vised that per­sons at­tend a yo­ga class to re­ceive prop­er in­struc­tion and not at­tempt the ex­er­cis­es on their own. In ad­di­tion to the ex­er­cis­es men­tioned by the in­struc­tor, the web­site http://yo­ga.love­to­know.com al­so gives sev­er­al yo­ga pos­es to help with si­nus pres­sure. Such pos­es in­clude the Stand­ing For­ward Bend, Down­ward-Fac­ing Dog, Plow Pose, Bridge Pose, Seat­ed For­ward Bend and the Sup­port­ed Head­stand. In­struc­tions on how to do all pos­es are giv­en in de­tail on the site. Of course, there are more reme­dies out there such as the well known nasal washouts (where a mix­ture of salt and wa­ter is used to rinse clogged si­nus­es), nasal sprays and fa­cial mas­sages. How­ev­er, if you have been try­ing these and you have re­ceived no re­lief then don't lose hope, there are sev­er­al ways to get re­lief. Maybe you can try them all!