Sinus infections are common among both children and adults. In fact, you would hardly find anyone who hasn’t gone through one or two episodes of such infection in the past.
Sinusitis or a sinus infection could be caused by a variety of inducing agents such as bacteria, viruses, allergens or pollens.
1. Nasal Congestion
It would feel like there is something stuck in your nasal passage. You would struggle to breathe through your nose, and your voice would sound “stuffy” at times. Nasal congestion is due to pouring down of infectious materials from sinus cavities to your nasal passage. Besides, your sinuses and nasal passage would get swollen resulting in nasal congestion.
People familiar with sinus infection would tell you about decreased taste sensation too. In severe cases of infection, this can happen. Always bear in mind that almost all of our organs and sensations are interrelated. If there is a problem in any of those, it’s likely that you would feel problems in other organs too. This is also true for sinus infections and head neck structures.
2. Fever
Fever is a common symptom of any sort of infection. It’s basically a protective response of your body against harmful organisms. Whenever you are infected with an organism, your body cells release chemicals that fight against the bacteria and virus, and in the process, increase the core temperature of your body.
Now, imagine what deadly bacteria and virus could do to your body. Viruses and bacteria stack up in your body; your immune system mounts up a response and starts fighting infectious organism. As a result, you start experiencing symptoms of fever. Your body temperature might rise during the acute infectious period and might subside overtimes.
3. Whole Body Fatigue
Do you feel exhausted even after a period of uninterrupted sleep? You might be suffering from a sinus infection. At times, there is extreme whole-body fatigue associated with an infection, and you might even experience excruciating pain all over your body especially lower back, around the shoulder and facial region. The pain might persist for several days and then decrease gradually. These findings have been validated by numerous studies in the past, and researchers suggest that this whole-body fatigue is caused by infection. Besides, you might be blowing your nose or coughing forcefully. This might also lead towards generalized fatigue and body ache.
4. Facial Swelling
A sinus infection might lead towards facial swelling. As you already might know air sinuses are placed behind your frontal bone and surrounding areas. As a result, when there is an infection in your sinuses, it tends to spread to surrounding areas. The face is the most likely victim of your overt sinus infection.
There might be facial swelling, redness surrounding the sinus areas, and your face might hurt on touch. Often this is how your physician would diagnose a classic case of sinus infection. He will press the swollen area and observe your reaction. Usually, there is a painful reaction from patients as infected sinus could severely increase the pain sensation of your face.
5. Headaches
Headaches are common for a person suffering from a sinus infection. There is that relentless headache that doesn’t seem to go away.
Headaches during a sinus infection might be throbbing in nature and are relentless most of the time. The headaches may cause difficulty while sleeping as the fluid tends to accumulate in the sinus cavity during the night. Changes in barometric pressure might exacerbate the pain. Some headaches caused by a sinus infection could be relieved with medication.
6. Inflammation of Ear
As it has been noted, all our body structures are interconnected. This is more so evident for head-neck structures. If you have an infection in your nose, it might spread quickly and affect your ears overnight. This also happens in the case of a sinus infection as it might cause inflammation of the ear. There are typical signs of inflammation of the ear such as pain, redness, rising of local temperature.
While examining your nose and sinuses, your physician might also examine your ear for signs of inflammation.
7. Loss of Smell
Have you ever tried smelling something during your acute sinus infection period? If you have, then you might already know what we’re talking about. There might be a loss of smell. During an infection, your nose gets congested with sinus fluid. As a result, you might find it difficult breathing through your nose, since there are precious little spaces left in your nasal passage.
Likewise, you would struggle discerning objects based on smell. But people suffering from such infection might experience loss of smell in several different ways. For example, some people might not smell anything at all. For others, there is a change in smelling pattern. Remember that, your loss of smell should get better within a few days. If it doesn’t, please consult your physician as soon as possible.
8. Sinus Pressure
This is a simple law of physics. If you continue to put water into a closed cavity, the pressure within the cavity will start rising soon. This same mechanism could be applied to a sinus infection. Here, your sinuses get filled with fluids and infected materials.
As a result, the pressure within your sinus cavities starts to rise. Soon, you might experience a dull pressure around your forehead or on both sides of your nose. The sinus pressure gets better with pressing hot towel over the sinus areas since heat drains out the trapped fluids within your sinuses down your throat. That’s why doctors often prescribe hot towel treatment for sinus pressure.
9. Difficulty Sleeping
There is a multitude of factors working here. You have pain around your eyes and forehead, you can’t breathe through your nose, or you might be struggling with a high fever. One of those symptoms is sufficient for having trouble sleeping. Now imagine – a person who is suffering from a sinus infection and has two or more of these symptoms might even struggle to fall asleep on their back, let alone sleeping. Besides, you might not feel refreshed even after a long nap.
10. Throat Irritation
There is accompanying throat irritation with most sinus infections. This is due to post nasal dripping. During the night, fluid passes from your sinuses into your throat causing throat irritation. The problem is often severe in the morning and improves as the day passes by. You might find temporary relief by sucking on throat lozenges.
Signs and symptoms of sinus infections are varied and often unspecific. For example, headaches caused by a migraine could easily be mistaken as a sinus headache. Hence, it is better to consult a physician before concluding. At times, they are the only ones who can distinguish between a sinus infection or a more severe form of head-neck disease.
