I'm not too sure what my problem might be, it's a couple of various issues, so I'm going to give a bit of background before my question. it may be a bit long, but if someone could answer my various questions it would be greatly appreciated!!
For the last few years, I have reguarly had sinus problems - at least thats what I think it was. When it is minor, I feel "congested" - mostly it feels like it is "above the back of my throat" if that makes sense. Due to this I thought it may be a nasal drip. Commonly when I feel this happening, I get a pain in the back of my neck as well. Its kind of hard to explain where, but if you go from your ears to the back of your neck - straight in the middle in the back of my neck between my ears. That's where it starts, and when it gets worse it spreads a little bit to the side- around the area where there is a node in my neck - which made me wonder if it was the node itself. When it gets really bad it spreads to a headache on the top or sides of my head, and feels like it is behind my eyes. So due to what happens when it gets really bad, and how I always feel congested when it happens, that's what make me feel it is sinuses.
This has been happening for 4-5 years now - I used to get acid reflux very badly when it started but that has cleared up since then. It is nowhere near as severe as it used to be as well - I used to get those bad headaches very often and now they are pretty rare. But typically sometime every day I feel minor pain in the back of my neck and congestion. I dont know if the acid reflux could somehow be related but it seemed to be worse when it was bad.
Also, when I feel congested and my neck hurts it feels like I need to clear my throat - which makes me think nasal drip again. Often when this happens it feels like I have to clear my throat and it is very difficult to get it clear, and occasionally when I cleared it is a lump of mucus. Sometimes I got a bit worried because the mucus was grayish, but I looked it up online and found out that this is fairly common with smoking. I never smoked ciggarettes, but I have been an on and off pot smoker over the years. I read that this is normal and shows that your lungs are actually working so it is not a bad thing. I also was pretty sure it was just from smoking because it tended to get worse when I smoked, and when I stopped smoking for a few months it cleared up a bit and the lumps got smaller.
Also I get sore throats pretty easily - sometimes when I wake up (but that was common when I had sinus infection), and sometimes if I am talking I get one - as if I was yelling all day - but I wasnt.
I first went to a doctor for this about a year and a half ago... at first I was diagnosed with sinusitis. I went back a few months later and then we kind of got a run around which was horrible. On one of the checkups on it he said my sinuses were fine, but said that there were some nodes in my neck that were swollen, and some in my groin area. This scared me, and since then I normally started checking my nodes. One thing I found strange is that I could feel the ones in the left side of my neck, but not in my right side. The doctor told me that the ones in the left were swollen so he wanted to do more tests. This followed with 4 months of tests - another test every week or 2. I had a lung xray, multiple blood tests, HIV tests, I dont even remember what else, but having tests like that scared me so badly. On top of that, I felt my nodes which he told me were swollen, so because of that I "knew" something was wrong. With the nodes swollen for months and the tests they sent me for, I was depressed because I "knew" something was wrong and felt like I was going to die. Then I went in and the doctor said everything came back normal, and that since the node is still swollen, he was going to send me to an ENT for a biopsy because that is all it could have been at that point even though none of my blood work indicated it, and talked to me saying that it may get expensive from there etc. I was scared to death.
Well, then I go to the ENT, I explain to him what happened, and he feels the nodes in my neck and checks everything out, and tells me that the other doctors sent me in the wrong direction. He said that first off the pain that I mentioned was a tension headache, and the pain in my neck is muscle pain. Plus, he said that none of the nodes in my neck were swollen - the only reason they could be felt at all is because I am very skinny, and they need to be 1cm or larger to even take a biopsy. This was a huge relief, but I was still confused a bit. Partly because I can still feel the nodes only on the left side of my neck and not on my right side at all. Also, I'm not quite convinced that it is muscle pain in my neck. I do not think it is a coincidence that every time my neck pain acts up I am congested, and that it gets worse when I have the other symptoms that I am assuming is from my sinuses.
After talking to him about what the original doctors did to me, he apoligized on their part and said that honestly, they probably ran me around just to keep making money off of us. He did not believe that all the tests were really even neccessary in the first place. As sad as it sounds, I believe him as well.
I was still worried that they mentioned nodes in my groin were swollen though - and even though I did not believe them, I wanted to be sure. So we got a new general doctor, and did some research and she is supposed to be a very good one.because she used to train interns, and she just recently opened up a general doctor. So once I had an appointment, she told me that I had nothing to worry about in the nodes in my groin area. I had her check the ones in my neck as well for a second opinion and she agreed that those were fine as well.
So now, I'm not worried about my nodes anymore thankfully, but I'm still wondering about my sinus/neck problems. I've noticed a couple things lately though.
About a week or 2 ago I was having one of those real bad headaches - it went on for a few hours, it felt like a sinus headache, pain on the side of my head and behind my eyes pulsing, and the back of my neck. I felt very congested to a point I felt nauseous. On this day I woke up a few hours earlier and did not eat, and didnt remember when I last ate, so I thought that may be the reason I was having problems. So I ate a bit and that did not help much. It made me feel like I was going to throw up. So I felt like I needed to clear my throat and couldnt get it up. Trying to get it up made me feel even more nauseous, so it was at a point I was wondering if just letting myself throw up may be the best. So I did. Strange thing is, right after I threw up, I felt better. No more nauseousness, my neck pain went away, my headache went away.
This puzzled me, I can not for the life think of me how congestion and what feels like sinus headaches could be linked to throwing up? But this reminded me of how I wondered if acid reflux had something to do with it.
Since then I have not had a bad headache like that, but I still have the minor neck pain fairly often. I noticed something else. Often it happens after I eat, so that made me wonder if it was linked to acid somehow. Also I noticed that when my throat is tough to clear when that happens, usually when I end up getting it out, it helps my neck pain go away a bit. It typically has a little bit of the grayish mucus mixed in as well - very little bit but some (I last smoked 2 months ago).
Could any of these things actually be linked? Or is it just a coincidence/in my head? Might the mucus be coming up because being full puts pressure on my lungs or something? Is there a reason why the pain tends to go away when I get my throat clear, or that time I threw up?