Sinusitis Experience #013
Acupuncture Treatment Helped Prevent Sinus Infections

As a child, I had asthma and allergies and took allergy shots for 9 years. When we moved from PA to SC, things improved and I stopped shots and did pretty well for 10 years or so. But the past few years I have had chronic sinusitis. When I have a sinus infection, my asthma returns. For over a year, I could barely go 3 weeks without another infection. Last year I had two sinus surgeries. The first surgery apparently introduced a fungal infection, and the second surgery was to do a fungal culture. But the E.N.T. forgot to order the fungal culture and decided to try Sporanox. I got better for awhile- after suffering for 7 months continuously.

The E.N.T. referred me to an allergist. I was allergic to 65 of the 79 allergens I was tested for. I tried allergy shots, but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th shot left me with shortness of breath, so the allergist decided to discontinue the shots. I am allergic to 4 classes of antibiotics, and the allergist was concerned I'd become allergic to more if I continued to use antibiotics.

I was extremely discouraged, and as a pharmacist, knew I had precious few options left to regain my health. The insomnia was the worst part of all the infections, I could barely keep my eyes open to drive across town I was so chronically sleep deprived.

I began using a sinus rinse twice a day, with water that had been previously boiled (and a salt combination to make saline), and that helped a good bit. But the real breakthrough came when I went to an acupuncturist. My E.N.T. had laughed and said, "I don't see what possible good THAT could do!" But I had spent over $2,000 out of pocked on surgeries that didn't help, and made me worse! And I had spent over $1,000 out of pocked on rx meds, and I had spent hundreds of dollars on allergy shot serum that I couldn't tolerate- all of that in ONE year.

The acupuncture treatment began working within a minute or so of the needles being inserted. I felt like someone had sprayed Afrin up my nose. I could literally feel the inflammation going down in my sinuses and felt a lot of drainage. Every few minutes for the rest of that day, I could feel my sinuses opening up more and more drainage. I was on the first 24 hours of a sinus infection when I went to my acupuncture treatment, and it never materialized! So far, I have avoided 7 sinus infections from August till December. I did have to take antibiotics once, but only Biaxin for 8 days instead of 3-6 weeks and no anti-fungals were necessary. I have been amazed at the improvements in my health and disappointed that this option was never presented to me BEFORE surgery.

~ A. Cassidy

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