SE Dallas News

• Some common symptoms of sinusitis include nasal inflammation, reduced sense of taste or smell, nasal discharge, difficulty breathing through your nose, and pain, tenderness, or swelling around the cheeks, eyes, nose or forehead.
• Symptoms that some sufferers might find surprising could include ear pain, bad breath, fatigue, or aching in your upper jaw and teeth.
• There are nonsurgical treatments available to help with sinusitis symptoms, including balloon sinuplasty.

Dr. Monty Trimble of Dallas Breathe Free said there are many symptoms of sinusitis that affect different areas of the body, one of which is the lungs.

According to the Mayo Clinic, acute sinusitis can not only make it difficult to breathe through your nose, but the area around your eyes and face could get swollen, and you could be dealing with throbbing facial pain and headaches.

"There's been much said about the kind of combined airway when you talk about the respiratory mucosal tissue," Trimble said. "What tends to affect the nose also affects the lungs. We certainly know that patients with asthma tend to have worse asthma when the nose and the sinuses are not managed well, and so, certainly if someone comes in with issues with their lungs and their sinuses are obstructed, then we know that if we can address that effectively, that tends to greatly improve their pulmonary issues as well."

Physical symptoms of chronic sinusitis can include the usual symptoms that everyone expects, but other symptoms that might not be known either. These can all include nasal inflammation, a runny nose, postnasal drainage, congestion, pain or swelling in the face, headaches, loss of smell and taste, a sore throat, bad breath or fatigue, according to the Mayo Clinic.

People experiencing symptoms that aren't improving for more than a week should see a physician. An ENT specialist might recommend a saline solution or over-the-counter medication, and if those don't help symptoms improve, they might prescribe antibiotics or a corticosteroid spray. If those treatments do not resolve the sinusitis symptoms, the ENT specialist might recommend sinus surgery.

Some sinusitis sufferers might also be unaware of nonsurgical treatments that are available, including balloon sinuplasty, which is an in-office procedure that's simple and only takes about an hour, according to Entellus Medical. The preparation takes about 30 minutes and involves anesthetics being applied to the nose for more comfort. A thin instrument with a balloon is then guided through your sinus, the balloon is gently inflated for five seconds with saline and when your sinuses open, the balloon is removed.

To learn more about sinus symptoms and treatments, take this free quiz.