How to determine sinusitis at home, everyone should know, especially if you regularly have to deal with colds. If you have a runny nose for a long time and constantly have a headache, this is a reason to worry and begin to suspect sinusitis or sinusitis. However, if there is no time or desire to take an X-ray to confirm the diagnosis, you need to understand how to determine the disease yourself. In this article we will tell you what methods of home diagnostics exist, but you should understand that such methods do not give a 100% guarantee, so you still need to consult a doctor.
Features of the disease
There are several ways to determine sinusitis at home. It is worth noting that this disease is a form of sinusitis. It manifests itself in inflammation of the maxillary sinuses, is considered one of the most common ailments that the otolaryngologist treats.
The sinuses themselves are airways. Their main purpose is pressure stabilization between intracranial and atmospheric, air conditioning and resonator functions. In most cases, sinusitis develops as a result of an untreated runny nose or a cold or due to problems with the teeth of the upper row.
The first manifestations of this ailment are mucus accumulation, nasal congestion, purulent discharge.
Causes
To understand why people suffer from sinusitis, you can, if you delve into the causes of this disease. It is important not to confuse it with rhinosinusitis, although the symptoms and manifestations can be very similar. The fact is that rhinosinusitis includes an inflammatory process that develops not only in the nasal cavity itself, but also in the sinuses, including the paranasal.
Here is a list of reasons why sinusitis appears.
- Infections They enter the nasal cavity through breathing or blood. In some cases, sinusitis can be associated with a curved nasal septum, adenoid vegetation, enlarged nasal concha, or allergy.
- Injury to the mucous membrane that lines the maxillary sinuses.
- Decreased immune system performance.
- Bacteria, in particular, staphylococci.
- Permanent stay in a draft or in rooms with dry air.
- Untreated and neglected colds and colds.
- Failure to comply with hygiene rules, as well as diseases of the oral cavity, in particular damage to the upper teeth.
- Long stay in hazardous work.
- Adenoid and polypous growths.
- Damage or abnormality in the anatomy of the nasopharynx.
- Tuberculosis.
- Radiation sickness.
- Fungal mucosa.
- The presence of a benign or malignant tumor.
- Frequent use of nasal drops for rhinitis.
Types of disease
Sinusitis itself can be of several varieties - acute, chronic or allergic. It depends on the causes of inflammation and how the disease develops.
We will tell you more about each form. The acute form of sinusitis in most cases appears due to hypothermia or against the background of infection. If you do not carry out the necessary treatment, the acute form can become chronic. The allergic type of disease, as a rule, is seasonal in nature, as it occurs as a result of certain allergens entering the body.
Acute form
In the acute form of sinusitis, the patient is constantly tormented by a headache. Moreover, as a result of any manipulations - sneezing, bending, coughing, pain only intensifies, and significantly. Over time, they develop into a feeling of fullness.
Characteristic symptoms for the acute form are high body temperature, general lethargy, chills, migraine, tearing, photophobia, lack of smell. At the same time, pus, mucus or a mixture of them is secreted from the nose.
Here's a tip on how to determine sinusitis at home. If you have a chronic form of the disease, then it can be visually distinguished by swelling of the cheeks and swelling of the eyelids.
Chronic sinusitis
Determining the presence of chronic sinusitis in a patient is especially important. If this kind of ailment is not treated, it can provoke various intracranial diseases. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to independently diagnose a chronic form in yourself, therefore, at the first signs, it is recommended to consult your doctor. The reason for this lies in very vague symptoms, which often do not receive any attention at all, attributing them to stress or general fatigue.
In particular, chronic sinusitis is manifested by a constant feeling of lethargy and weakness, periodic headaches, which intensify in the evenings, weakened by the sense of smell, rapid fatigue, as well as a feeling of stuffiness of one or both nostrils at once.
As a rule, with chronic sinusitis, body temperature does not increase. This can only happen if another viral disease accompanies it.
Allergic form
Allergic sinusitis in its symptoms is similar to the acute form of this disease. In this case, the manifestations of this ailment can either subside, or reappear. Often this is due to the seasonal activity of specific allergens.
Among the symptoms of allergic sinusitis, the following are distinguished:
- unpleasant feeling of fullness in the nose, under the cheeks and over the nose;
- persistent headache;
- regular itching in the nose;
- difficulty smelling and breathing;
- pathological discharge from the nose, which appear with an enviable frequency.
Allergic sinusitis recedes as soon as the allergens that caused it decrease their activity.
Common symptoms
To understand how to determine sinusitis in an adult, you should understand the general symptoms of this disease. It is important to recognize it before the start of the so-called active phase, when you need serious treatment.
Regardless of the type of disease, the presence of sinusitis can be determined by a prolonged runny nose, which does not go away for three to four weeks. In this case, do not flatter yourself, if there is no pus in your discharge, it can still be sinusitis.
Another obvious sign that you should pay attention to if you are trying to understand how to determine sinusitis at home is an increase in body temperature up to 40 degrees. However, this symptom, like many others, may indicate another catarrhal disease. Therefore, it is worth recognizing that without an X-ray, it is quite difficult to establish whether you have this particular ailment. There are practically no proven methods for determining sinusitis or a runny nose.
Diagnostics
When contacting a doctor, a full examination will be carried out, which will allow you to establish which disease you are suffering from. Doctors have a certain list of methods for this. When you visit the clinic, you can do this with maximum accuracy.
Here's how doctors define sinusitis: rhinoscopy, x-ray of the sinuses, endoscopy of the nose, ultrasound of the sinuses.
Medical methods require confirmation of the diagnosis when the patient develops an inflammatory process. For example, if an ultrasound scan reveals pathological processes that develop in the nose, the diagnosis is confirmed by x-ray. This method is considered the most accurate. Here's how to determine sinusitis in an adult. Symptoms in this case may help to make certain assumptions, which will still require confirmation.
There are other ways. Consider how else you can determine sinusitis without x-rays. In some cases, a puncture is done for this, which allows you to distinguish sinusitis from any other ailment. Also, the doctor can prescribe a parallel disinfection of the sinuses through the use of special solutions.
Doctor himself
If you still seek to learn how to determine sinusitis in an adult, then there are a few tips. First of all, the patient should independently analyze his condition. In self-diagnosis, the main indicator that can more or less accurately indicate an ailment is migraine. Especially if it intensifies, it manifests itself regularly, and at any time, regardless of any external factors.
If at the same time it is not possible to eliminate migraine with standard painkillers, this is a clear sign of the development of the disease. Here's how to identify a disease while at home.
At the same time, we recognize that there is no reliable way to determine sinusitis. Symptoms are too typical for most types of colds, so it is easy to confuse it with some other ailment. Only in the event that sinusitis previously occurred to you, this can somewhat ease the situation, since the physiological sensations in this case will be more familiar to you.
Palpation method
Talking about how to determine if there is sinusitis, some advise using the palpation method. In this case, it is important to carefully analyze your general condition and feel the area located around the nose.
Palpations should be subjected, first of all, to the area of the anterior sinus walls. If even a slight pressure in this place provokes a serious increase in pain, there is a likelihood of an acute form of sinusitis.
Also, when probing, it is necessary to pay close attention to the density of tissues. If you have to palpate with difficulty, this is an obvious sign of pathology of the sinuses, a sign that you need urgent professional medical help, otherwise the disease can go into a chronic stage.
To summarize, we note that at home you can only try to determine if you have sinusitis. Without x-ray research and special tools to establish this reliably is not possible.
Sinusitis in children
Additional difficulties arise with children, since often they are not able to clearly articulate exactly which symptoms and problems they are concerned about. Therefore, it is important for parents to know by what signs they can establish the presence of this ailment in their baby.
In children, as well as adults, this disease in most cases manifests itself against the background of the most common cold, which is accompanied by a runny nose. The most dangerous thing is when children have a bilateral lesion.
If mothers and fathers will know well what are the symptoms of maxillary sinus inflammation in children, they will be able to quickly diagnose the disease, and in the future to avoid unpleasant complications.
With inflammation in a child, characteristic symptoms will be general lethargy, excessive moodiness, loss of appetite and sleep, headache, fever, violation of nasal breathing and smell, profuse discharge from the nose, and swelling in the eyelids and face.
It should be remembered: at a young age, kids often can not say what exactly it hurts. Therefore, parents should be especially careful, remember that it is very difficult to determine sinusitis in a child, therefore, when the first signs appear, you should consult a doctor.