Sinus symptoms and body aches, fatigue?

[de49152]

Hi,

This is my first post.  I am an otherwise healthy 32 year old male, but frustrated by this recent baffling problem.

For the last 2-3 weeks, I've had mild sinus congestion & pressure, along with strange "flu-like" body aches, weakness & fatigue.  I have no fever or night sweats, and nasal mucous is clear.

I do get a lot of allergies, but never these "flu-like" symptoms.  I went to the doc and have been taking Septra for a possible sinus infection, but no improvement.

I don't know what's linking the sinus condition with the other symptoms... virus (like chronic fatigue), allergies, infection, autoimmune disorder (hope not)?

Any advice or comments welcome.
-Dan

[dreammaker189]

again, my best advice is to avoid irritants or if you know you've been near them, get your nasal passages rinsed out asap, keep saline spray on you if possible.  Some irritants that really affect me are fumes from vehicles I might be parked behind on the road in traffic, paint fumes, springtime molds from dead leaves etc, dust from roads, household dust ie when vacuuming, pollen when it's super thick in the spring and early summer.  Heat has even caused sinus infections as when you are in the heat a lot, it dries out the nasal mucosa and the sinuses become extremely dry.  The mucosa, that slimy clear stuff in your passages, acts as a barrier from irritants, so if it's dry the irritants stick in the sinuses and nasal passages.  I find walking past someone wearing heavy perfume will just kill my sinuses and I can feel them swelling within minutes.  It's hard to always keep your nose sprayed out, but it helps.  Avoid the decongestant type of nasal sprays as they can make symptoms actualy worse as they dry out the sinues.  Just saline and if you don't have that, just squirt plain, clean water up there.  Drink LOTS of water daily, not juice, coffee, tea or other liquids, but water is waht will keep the sinuses and nasal passages healthy and moist.  They have to be moist.  But if you've been in contact with an irritant, spray the sinuses out as soon as you can.  I find i have about two days to treat an irritant, before it goes into a full blown infection from the sinuses being blocked too long.  

[dreammaker189]

not sure if this will help but, here is what I've figured out over 20 years of sinus problems.  A bit of explaining but reading some of your posts it sounds like the confusion is whether it is caused from allergies, though it is not really.  I've been the allergy route too and nothing was found.  

What it is, is something whether a temporary allergen or just dust or as in my case two weeks ago, dust from a load of rocks we put along our house, but anything that gets up into the sinus passage, sits there, creates a bit of a reaction in the sinuses (called irritants)  It can even be paint fumes, perfumes, etc that are irritating the sinuses, but are not actually allergies.  Then what happens is the sinuses become swollen in reaction to whatever it was that irritated them.  Then they block up a bit, because they are swollen (this is when you feel the pressure in the sinuses) From there, if you do not get the irritant flushed out copiously within two to three days, the sinuses remain blocked and back up the normal drainage and because it's all sitting in the sinus cavity, the infection begins to ensure.  

Then from there, you need to get onto antibiotics.  I've tried many antibiotics and they seemed to never work.  Now, I go in, ask for SUPRAX as it will literally kill out an infection in 48 hours, then you just finish the 7 day course of one pill per day, but it works like nothing else.  Regular antibiotics don't get rid of sinus infections.  You can take regular antibiotics and still be sick if they are not the right type of antibiotic.

My symptoms are very weird, I not only get sinus pressure, but I get dizziness, pain in the eyes, light sensitivity, mild to bad headache that won't go away, sometimes jaw pain or teeth pain, temporal pressure, then I get neck pain, upper shoulder muscle ache, general fatigue and overall body pain and just feel wiped right out.  I also get verrrry short of breath with sudden exertion with a sinus infection and never do otherwise.  So it really does affect your whole system  and shouldn't be left alone, it basically makes your whole body toxic.  Took me a long time to figure all that out.  

Preventatively, use saline spray to your sinuses every day.  Just spray them a few times to clear "irritants" out.  Irritants, and not "allergies" can get into the sinuses and boom, cause a sinus blockage, that leads to infection.  So it doesn't mean you are allergic to anything, but springtime molds from dead leaves will cause my sinuses to block. so I use sprays in the spring time. If I'm around a lot of dust of any kind indoors or outdoors, ie vacuuming or walking outside in the woods, I use sprays.  Usually now i can keep a sinus infection to once or twice every couple of years, whereas before it was about every 3 months.  So  I hope that helps.  Sinus infections will make you feel completely unwell, even nauseated and if bad enough, severe migraine.  Drink 8-10 glasses of water a day also to keep your nasal mucosa really moist.  The more moist it is, the less chance irritants can settle in there.
Hope that helps!  Again, ask for Suprax if you feel you have an infection, it kills upper respiratory infections dead within 24 hours you start to feel way better but be sure to finish your 7 day course.  It's the only stuff I've found works and I've been doing this since 1987 :( trying to figure out what works best.

[lynn645]

I know my flu like symptoms are due to allergies because they are seasonal.  I just visited a new allergy doctor and he said flu like symptoms are not a symptom of allergies.  He said I most likely have an autoimmune disorder. I said, "seasonally"? I feel for all of you who suffer all the time.  It would be hard to pinpoint it to allergies. I currently take zyrtec D, flonase and astelin.I also do nasal rinses each morning and night.  These help, but not completely.  I have been suffering with this for the last 22 years.  The symptoms start in late summer and are gone by the end of January. I can be completely miserable and spend a lot of time in bed.  I am sorry to hear people suffer year around.  It can be terrible.

[jonnny333]

Also, starchy veggies like potatoes and sweet potatoes have to go as well.

[jonnny333]

I have found this is not sufficient. If you really want to give diet a serious try as the source of your problems, you need to stop eating many more things for a little while (probably not good long term). No grains, beans, nuts, sugars, fruits or processed anything. If you really want to eliminate all the toxic crap you're eating you'll have to try eating nothing but (1) simple whole organic veggies (raw or cooked, but ideally from a local farmer's market or your own garden) and (2) organic meats (preferably wild caught fish and game). Drinking should be limited to absolutely nothing but water. Do this for one month and see what happens. This means absolutely no meal where you cannot identify all the ingredients visually from several feet away. Ideally nothing ground, stored, shipped or processed in any way unless you did it yourself. It sounds like a lot of work and you will definitely feel some hunger and lose a bit of weight, but it's most likely to identify the problem. And what's more work, really eliminating all the crap for a month or trying this and that as the months and years slip away from you?

[redbroom]

Have you checked for a UTI?