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A new British study has shown that antibiotics, the common prescription of doctors for sinus infections, may not help to cure sinusitis. In this new study, people who were suffering from sinus infection symptoms including runny nose with green or yellow mucus, generally got better in about two weeks whether or not they took antibiotics or not.
Antibiotics such as Amoxicillin are some of the most commonly prescribed medicines for sinus infections. The current view that antibiotics are the most effective way to combat a common sinus infection can now effectively be challenged. The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Physicians may now start to focus on other sinus infection remedies such as steam inhalation, or natural sinus infection sprays to treat the symptoms of a sinus infection.
During the study, researchers also treated a group of sinus sufferers with common steroid sprays and the results were the same as those for antibiotics.
Sinus infections are very common in the United States and some estimates show that over 31 million Americans are diagnosed with sinus infections each year.
In 1999, the Mayo Clinic performed a study that found that most cases of chronic sinus infections, those lasting longer than 2 weeks and can last months or years, are caused by an immune system response to fungus and not by bacteria. This new study seems to confirm in some ways the finding of the Mayo study.
Since antibiotics are only effective against bacteria, this would make perfect sense why many chronic and acute do not respond to the common antibiotics that doctors so often prescribe.
In 2001, the U.S. physicians' group issued guidelines advising against using antibiotics for most sinus infections in otherwise healthy people, blaming overuse for contributing to the growing problem of bacteria resistant to drugs.
In the air there are numerous bacteria and when breathing we inhale them. If the cilia filter is malfunctioning, these bacteria can get blocked in the sinus cavities and produce an infection. Therefore we must know how to recognize this type of infection in order to treat it well. Some general symptoms of sinus infection are: headaches, fatigue, facial and upper jaw pains, and tenderness of the sinus area, sore throat, cough, colored nasal drainage, bad breath and swollen eye lids.
There are different types of sinus and the symptoms might differ when each one is affected; the symptoms differ also for acute and chronic sinusitis.
Frontal acute sinusitis brings fever, forehead pain, nasal discharge or postnasal drip. Also the person feels better if it has the head upright.
In acute maxillary sinusitis the pain appears when the head is upright and the patient feels better if the head is in a reclining position. This type of sinusitis affects one or both of the cheekbones, causing pain, redness and swallowing of the cheekbone; nasal discharge is also present; pain occurs also around the eye and the upper teeth.
Acute ethmoid sinusitis causes symptoms like: pain near the base of the nose, between the eyes, one side of the nose or around the inner corner of the eyes; headaches, nasal discharge and congestion. The pain gets worse if the head is upright and when coughing.
Acute sphenoid sinusitis has the following symptoms: fever, terrible pain when lying back and bending forward, on top of the head and in the forehead area. Also nasal discharge is present. If pressure extents to the brain, visual problems might install.
In chronic frontal sinusitis, the forehead pain is generally constant and low-graded, and at a check-up sinus damage is present.
Chronic maxillary sinusitis brings constant pain in the upper teeth, below the eyes the patient can feel pressure, and cough that gets worse during the night.
The chronic ethmoid sinusitis (affects the bridge of the nose and the base of the nose between the eyes). Nasal discharge and congestion are most of the time present, sore throat, bad breath appear in this case too, and the pain occurs when wearing glasses and in the late morning.
In chronic sphenoid sinusitis, the infection of the sinuses gives a general headache.
Even though rarely, untreated, sinusitis can lead to serious complications like the spread of the infection in the body.
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