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Sinus infection for 17 days, not responding to 2 courses of antibiotics

Hi, I am on day 17 of this sinus infection. I have a 8 year history of chronic sinusitis in my right maxillary sinus and about 10 sinus infections a year, half of them requiring antibiotics.

I have never had a sinus infection this complicated. I am weak, started with sore throat and lots of mucus, and now I just have terrible facial pain that seems to be moving over the days from my right eye to the middle of my forehead.

I was given cefuroxime 50mg x2/day for 6 days on day 3, and my symptoms got better until day 3 when I started worsening again. I went back and was given a blood test for c-reactive protein inflammation which turned out positive and was given Doxycycline 100mg x1/day for 10 days. Again, I was improving but on day 3 I started going downhill again.

I am currently weak in bed with the spreading headache, sensitive to light, and continue with yellow phlegm. My ears also experience a pressure/fullness.

What would be the next step for a doctor?
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Avatar universal
Neti pots are a godsend for these things I won't lie.  It's also possible you need a stronger antibiotic, one that treats different bacteria, or ones that can penetrate bone better if the infection has spread there.  It's also completely possible you have developed a severe allergy either short term or constant which is just re irritating and reinfecting/ or mimicking infection.  I'm extremely allergic to Pecan/Hickory/ Walnut pollen.  So from about the end of April till the beginning of June I'm in absolute misery.  The only thing that helps is a strong steroid to get me through and because I'm prone to infections due to being immunocompromised an antibiotic to go along with it at the end. So if you haven't had an allergy test I would do that.  I got both a skin prick and blood tests because sometimes an allergy will show up in one, but not the other. There's another possiblity as well which would be what is technically a sensitivity and not a true allergy (doesn't respond to a protein), but it's just a ornery as an allergy without responding to the typical treatments.  I went through what you're going through, but for six months.  I went to an ENT and he c0uldn't really find much wrong.  The CTScan didn't show an infection, but it felt like the worst sinus and ear infections of my life.  The pain was constant and by month three I developed cysts in my nasal cavities.  I started having asthma attacks that couldn't be controlled.  By month six, and of course no treatment for the maddening facial pain I was feeling, my doctor finally asked if I was allergic to aspirin.  I said, well no.  After all I had been taking ibuprofen for the pain and I knew they were related.  He said "Are you sure?"  I said, "Well, no."   He told me he had been reading about people who are super sensitive to aspirin and it's compounds called salicylates.  He mentioned Yellow food dyes and through my research I learned there are a lot of things that are high in salicylates.  Other food dyes, preservatives, veggies and fruits and I learned I was eating a lot of them plus taking them for the pain.  For most people it's not a problem, but if you're sensitive to it your body treats the compounds and related compounds like a poison.  Your mast cells can react to it and it feels just like a severe allergic reaction, but you may not have the typical blood tests for IGEs and other allergy markers come back positive .  Anyway, long story less long, I cut it all out of my diet.  It was one of the hardest thing I've ever done, but the pain stopped after a couple weeks and never came back the same unless I discovered I was accidentally ingesting a salicylate without knowing it.  Unfortunately the swelling went on too long untreated and it damaged my trigeminal nerve.  So I also had the fun of trigemnial neuralgia that eventually improved quite a bit.  So yeah, if it doesn't clear up eventually they may have to do a test CTscan to see if there's a blockage, a test to see what is actually infecting it if there is, and I'd certainly get an allergy test to see if it's causing the recurring infections.  In addition if none of that pans out I'd ask about anything from migraines (the light sensitivity made me think of them), see a neurologist (trigeminal and other facial neuralgias, and even check out salicylate sensitivity (Feingold Diet is pretty good at eliminating them).  Of course I'm not a doctor, just a dude who's been through hell, so take what I say not as actual medical advice and listen to your doctor.  I hope you find some relief.  
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Avatar universal
I haven't been on this site for awhile, because it's become common knowledge, at least in my area, that antibiotics aren't very effective against bacterial sinus infections of the sinuses, because sinuses are holes with little circulation of blood or antibiotics.  The true cause is infected mucus, which antibotics do not penetrate, and the cure is to remove the infected mucus with saline, which doesn't reach upper sinuses because of gravity.

Here is a technique that uses gravity instead of trying to defeat it, and it should work on your problem.

https://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/show/2322/The-Sinus-Flush

sincerely, friggy
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Avatar universal
My daughter was put on intravenous Cipro, which still did not help. Ultimately she had sinus obliteration surgery at the Univ of Penn Med center.  A long road
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3191940 tn?1447268717
Have you called your doctor again? Unfortunately, sometimes treatment of bacterial sinus infections isn't always easy to pin down.  It does sound like your doctors are doing their best, since they are running tests in order to determine the right antibiotic.  If your condition has continued worsening, though, it's time to get in for another visit ASAP.    There are other antibiotics, and intravenous antibiotics are also an option if oral antibiotics aren't getting to the source of the problem.
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