Question: atrophic rinitis

Hello,
My name is XXXXX [XXXXX]. I’m 66 years old person, male.
My problem is a chronic sinusitis.
I have dryness in the nose and nasal congestion all the time especially at night.
During night time it affects my sleep. I cannot breathe properly.
Therefore I have to wake up trying to clean up my nose without big success.
My medical history:
1.     Glaucoma, since 2000, I take 3 kinds of eye drop every day, 5 times daily.
2.     Elevated blood pressure, around 140-45/90-95. I feel that my nasal condition affects my blood pressure and mild chest pain in the morning .
3.      Every morning I do moderate weight lifting to boost the circulation and chest discomfort is gone after that.
4.     A week ago I visited my physician. He did not make a diagnosis and sent me to the sleep clinic. When I read what they are doing- I found that they deal with patients who have a sleep apnea. Though I told my doctor that I don’t snore and I have dryness and probably swelling in sinuses at night.
5.      I noticed that I have a little bit mucus on the back of my throat at night mostly.
6.     My wife has a severe concern that I breath very fast (5-6 times faster than her) using only upper chest all the time ( a shallow breathing).

I went to the Internet and found that there are 5 types of sinusitis. One of them, atrophic sinusitis, fits my symptoms.
In terms of allergic sinusitis: I am a vegetarian more over 15 years. And I also I don’t eat bread, pasta etc. Just veggies and a little bit of diary such as organic kefir and cheese. About 4 walnuts a day. Organic Sunflower seeds.
Could you kindly give me an advice how to treat my nasal problem, preferably using natural medications? In my country where I was born otolaryngologists prescribed tubes quartz treatment when nozzles with some light were inserted into the nostrils (several sessions) . May be something like cold laser (or whatever) treatment is available in here for such purposes? (Unfortunately when I googled a cold laser I found just hair removal or face lifting applications with it).

Thanks.
Regards,
XXXX

Thanks Dr XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
I think you are right about my diagnosis. I might have virus or candida ( because I always have a mild rush in the bottom part of my body. Like a diaper rush. (Doctors never pay much attention on it and prescribe corticost.-cream. They probably even have no candida detection protocol ).
I follow your advice to convince my physician to send me to ENT. In terms of treatment I probably'll try to find the website as same as yours but with naturopatic doctors. What I found right after your letter is:

"The naturopath said she wasn’t sure that anything else she could do would cure my sinus infection since I had already been doing those things for three weeks and had not achieved results. But she was willing to try and wait to see if I felt any improvement the following day. We agreed that if what she did failed to work, I would come back and do a culture to find out what type of medication would be best.

The first thing she did was perform some manipulations (she knows chiropractic treatment) on my neck and head. Then she took four long cotton swabs and soaked them in essential oils and pushed them up into my nasal passages – yes, inside my nasal passages! It felt very odd, but once they were in it wasn’t a problem and she left them there for ten or fifteen minutes. While the swabs were in, she did some head and facial massage and manipulations on pressure points corresponding to my sinuses. After she was finished with these treatments, my head was almost completely pain free – for the first time in over two weeks! It was amazing. She also told me to go home and do alternating hot and cold compresses on my sinuses before bed, take an herbal tincture from her office, and perform a sinus rinse with colloidal silver in my neti-pot (I had tried the colloidal silver as a nasal spray already with no success).

Later that afternoon I talked to my neighbor again and she suggested putting a probiotic capsule in my neti pot. I take daily doses of probiotics, but had not yet tried breaking open the capsule and putting it in the pot. I used self-massage on my sinuses throughout the rest of the day, as shown by the naturopath. I also did the compresses and took the tincture as directed.

Now here’s the most amazing part - at bedtime, I emptied the contents of a probiotics capsule into the neti-pot and proceeded to pour the warm water, salt, baking soda and probiotic mixture into my nasal passages. Immediately I felt a terrible burning sensation that went on for a good ten minutes. It was quite painful, but as it subsided, I was filled with a peaceful calm, and then retired to bed and had a good night sleep. The next morning, I awoke and was surprised to find that even as time went on, my head remained pain-free throughout the day. The horrible “ice pick” sinus pressure which was normally in full-swing by 10 a.m. was completely gone. Whenever I felt like I was getting a slight ache, I performed the facial massage to my temples and sinuses I had done the day before. I also used the probiotics in my neti pot a few more times over the next five days, along with my Whole Body Defense from Gaia Herbs, and some grapefruit seed extract (about 5 drops in 6 ounces of water twice a day). I was cured! I really believe those probiotics did some magical trick – although I’m sure some of the other things I did helped as well – because the first time I did it, after the burning came and went, the pain was completely gone and has not returned since.

Some people might still be skeptical after reading this and say, “yeah, you got well naturally, but it took nearly 4 weeks!” Yes, that is true. But how many people do you know who take antibiotics and don’t get well for weeks…or become sick again after thinking they are cured? How many others take one antibiotic, only to have it not improve their condition, and then return to the doctor for one or two more rounds of other antibiotics? This is a pretty common occurrence, and I didn’t want to be one of those people.

Here’s something else important to remember: the first two weeks I assumed whatever I had would go away on its own and didn’t make much of an effort to treat it sufficiently. It wasn’t until at least week two where I realized it was a serious infection and decided to do something. In many cases, the first thing you try isn’t the thing that is going to work. Just as described above, medical doctors often try many different medications before something actually brings results…and still, sometimes, it doesn’t work.

The other factor in all of this that people fail to take into account is the natural immunity granted to your body when you allow it to recover naturally instead of using pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter medications. These artificially-produced, toxic substances weaken the immune system by wiping out friendly bacteria and depleting the body of vital nutrients. They are also responsible for a wave of resistant bacteria which could ultimately cause the death of mass numbers of our population in the not-so-distant future. These bacteria become impervious to medications when they are actually needed, and in some cases, cannot be killed at all or will only be taken down by certain medications which are dangerous to use and can cause damage to the human body. Ultimately, I claim victory in this situation because even though it took me awhile to get over this, I did it without compromising my immune system and I gained natural immunity to whatever was making me sick.
Are antibiotics useful?

Remember that the word antibiotic literally means “anti-life”. Antibiotics have their place in the world, but they shouldn’t be used every time you get a flu, cold, or respiratory infection that lasts longer than 7 – 10 days . I once heard a story from a friend who went to the doctor and was given a prescription for antibiotics.
When she asked whether antibiotics were really necessary, the doctor replied that she didn’t want to mess around with a possible infection and antibiotics were the best thing. My friend asked whether she would die if she didn’t take the antibiotics and to which the doctor replied, “it’s possible”. So what if she hadn’t taken antibiotics for her infection? What would be the likelihood of her dying because she did not follow the doctor’s recommendation? Most people have compromised immune systems due to diet and poor lifestyle anyway, but taking antibiotics when your health is compromised will only make the problem later worse – even if it temporarily stops an infection in its tracks.

If you become sick and take antibiotics, you are really only wiping out all the bacteria in your body. You are not dealing with the underlying cause of the illness, which is why you became sick in the first place. This is why people get sick over and over again, even though they have taken antibiotics."

Best regards,
XXXXX

Updates from the website I'm just reading:

UPDATE 10/26/2012: "This last spring I had a pretty severe sinus infection again, and this time it didn’t respond to using my neti pot with probiotics in it.

My solution was to get a clean dropper bottle with warm filtered water (filled maybe about halfway full) and add liquid minerals to it (8-10 drops). I used Best Process by Dr. Morter’s liquid minerals. I switched liquid minerals brands this year because I had used Concentrace liquid minerals for a number of years and they didn’t really work for me (adding it to water).

Then I heated up a hot pack with buckwheat hulls in it (purchased from the health food store), and heated it in the microwave (the only thing I use the microwave for). I lay down on my bed and placed the pack on my forehead and then tilted my head back, and took the dropper bottle and put anywhere from 10-12 drops in my nasal passages and just let it stay there for a few minutes. You can do this while hanging your head off the bed or prop up a pillow to support your head so you can lean it back. After a few minutes, I either just let it absorb naturally or go to the sink and spit it out.

My ND told me that getting those minerals up in the sinus cavity is critical to eliminating the infection. One of the primary causes of most disease is mineral deficiency, and if you look at how deficient our soils and foods are of these important elements, this makes sense. It may take some days or a week or more of doing this multiple times a day until your infection will go away, and I had to do this for about 8 days, but it did work for me".