PSA: Your stubborn sinusitis may be a migraine disorder!
Seek medical advice from your doctor. I’m posting on this sub to spread awareness to anyone who might be misdiagnosed and are still searching for any kind of relief. It’s common for people and healthcare professionals to mistake migraines for sinusitis:
https://migrainecanada.org/deciphering-sinus-headaches-migraine-vs-sinusitis/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4028747/
https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/sinus-headache/
Facial nerves are weird! Those in our sinuses can be sensitive to external stimulus and, when irritated, mimic sinusitis. If your symptoms don’t totally reflect “typical” sinusitis, or you’re resistant to general sinusitis treatment, you might want to ask your doctor if you have migraines. Doesn’t hurt to ask :)
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Personal anecdote: I’ve had intense burning sinus and facial pain that is instantly triggered by dry air or fragrance, for almost a decade. My family and doctors all took it as sinusitis despite my symptoms not fully lining up with that condition. Nasal and sinus pain, a watery nose, post-nasal drip, and weather dependent triggers made it seem like that, but my symptoms never fully lined up. For example, the pain was never accompanied by thick mucus, fever, or facial pressure.
In reality, my symptoms either overlapped with sinusitis (ex. Headaches) or they were not stereotypically migraine-like. 95% of the time, I wasn’t in severe pain and I could somewhat function (though to a lesser degree). I only assumed I ever had migraines for that remaining 5% where I had to lie down in pitch black darkness, but those migraine symptoms were not frequent enough for me to ask a doctor about it. Even at its worst, I never had nausea, sensitivity to sound, aura, or had pain that persisted for days (it went away after some hours or sleep). There was no creeping of a migraine. Instead, onset was pretty much instant after a trigger.
I saw 2 ENTs. They, including my GP, only gave me nasal sprays/rinses, never antibiotics. They basically told me they can’t do anything more and to manage it however I can. It didn’t cross any doctor’s mind that a decade long infection wasn’t the reason for their patient with near daily pain and a clean CT scan. A migraine condition was only ever investigated because I had a hunch one day and thought to see a neurologist. So I finally got started migraine medication and had immediate results! It’s the relief I’ve been crazily desperate for this past decade.