Sinus complications like congestion and irritation are familiar to millions of Americans. When the difficulties advance to an infection, it becomes more life-threatening and requires advanced treatments like surgery. You can consult a Midtown East sinus surgery specialist to understand if you are a good candidate for surgery. This is especially if you have tried conservative measures and treatments, including medications, without success. Noting that sinus infection is no fun, you should go the extra mile to find relief. Here is what you can do if medications are not working for you.
Take Preventative Measures
Even though medications are not working, your provider will first avoid surgery as much as possible. Therefore, you might evaluate your infection causes and triggers to prevent them and minimize your symptoms. Assess your home and workplace environments and ensure they are safe for you. Note any allergy triggers and control them, and also quit smoking. Understand that dry air can irritate your sinuses, and it would be better to moisten the air using humidifiers. Also, ensure you seek treatment for your allergies and practice cold prevention.
Consider Advanced Medications
If your symptoms persist even after treating your allergies and taking preventative measures, consult your doctor about other forms of medications. Your provider might recommend antibiotics, nasal sprays, irrigations, or steroid medications. Over some time on the treatments, you should notice some improvements in your symptoms. However, if your condition does not change or becomes worse, your provider might carry out a CT scan to understand why the condition persists.
Surgery
No matter how you try to avoid surgery, it might be the last option for your condition when other treatments have failed. Your doctor will recommend surgery significantly if you have severely damaged sinus tissue, structural complications, a fungal infection, or benign growths. All these factors could be preventing your sinuses from draining, making the symptoms persist. Surgery will rebuild drainage pathways and create access to topical medications.
Seek In-office Procedures
Sometimes your condition might recur even after large openings are achieved through surgery. In such cases, you might need in-office operations like the placement of steroid-eluting stents and polypectomies. Luckily, advancements in technology have made these procedures relatively painless with a short recovery time. You can also benefit from endoscopic surgery, which avoids external incisions. It involves using a small endoscope inserted into the nose and has a camera to guide your provider. But you will be under anesthesia. Sometimes a balloon can be used to expand your sinuses.
Go for Follow-up Treatments
Although you might gain from surgery, it will require follow-up sessions to succeed in your treatment. It allows your provider to track your recovery progress and advise you accordingly on your postoperative care regime. You might need nasal sprays and irrigations after your surgery or have to continue taking some medications to avoid the recurrence of your complication. Proper follow-up care ensures you experience a significant reduction in your symptoms.
Sinus surgery is not the first line of sinus complications but becomes an option when other treatments will not solve the problem. If you feel medications alone are not working for you, reach out to Richard L. Nass, M.D., F.A.C.S today and learn if you can gain from surgery.