Sinus Medicine Can Alleviate the Pain of Sinus Infections

When you’re suffering with tender cheeks, nasal congestion and painful pressure around your eyes and forehead, you want relief. Sinus infections are agonizing and more often than not, antibiotics are prescribed as a sinus medicine. But according to a British study, antibiotics aren’t an effective sinus medicine. Sinus infections commonly occur as a complication to a cold or flu. It is caused when the mucus in the sinuses doesn’t drain and the nasal passage becomes clogged and congested. It is said that roughly 90 percent of American patients who suffered from a sinus infection were given an antibiotic as their sinus medicine.

The thing is antibiotics as a sinus medicine are only mildly helpful. Sinus infections are caused by bacteria and viruses, but antibiotics don’t treat viral infections. Two hundred and forty people who had sinus infection symptoms were studied. Some of the patients in the study were given an antibiotic sinus medicine along with nasal steroid sprays. Other patients were given no- treatment at all except for placebo pills and sprays. After 10 days, those patients who received the sinus medicine and those who didn’t receive any antibiotics were equally likely to get over the sinus infection.

In the end, antibiotics as a sinus medicine isn’t entirely ruled out, but its effect is quite small. Some may say that this antibiotic sinus medicine would treat the sinus infection a day or two earlier, but the study questions whether those two days are worth the antibiotic’s side effects. Dr. Morten Lindbaeck, a Norwegian sinus infection expert, said that he only gives out antibiotics as a sinus medicine if the patient has been dealing with the infection for more than seven days, has a fever and feels absolutely horrible. Otherwise, most of his sinus infection patients usually feel alright enough to function through the pain and stuffy head without the sinus medicine.