Brief Answer:
Possible transformed headache phenomenon

Detailed Answer:
Good morning. Whenever I hear about patients treated for sinus infections who report "lingering" symptoms even after a couple of weeks of supposed proper antibiotic therapy and who still have a bit of congestion, mucus, drainage, etc. along with these rather annoying and constant headaches- I always wonder about the possibility that either:

1. The "sinus" condition in the first place was really not a headache condition masquerading as a sinus infection since it is one of the most commonly confused diagnoses when it comes to headache medicine.

OR

2. The sinus infection was in fact a real upper respiratory ailment together with the typical symptoms of pain and acute accumulation of pus and mucus from the frontal or maxillary sinuses giving the typical facial pains and pressures, perhaps with temperature/fever, perhaps not....but that antibiotics really did treat a real live infection which got better but then, somehow either the infection or the treatment triggered or awoke a headache problem which is on the spectrum of migraine headaches given the rich supply of trigeminal nerve distribution endings in the upper respiratory passages and the sinuses where people report many of the symptoms of sinusitis when in reality they are feeling symptoms of a transformed migraine or migraine like syndrome.

Therefore, my recommendation to you is to seek out either a headache specialist who can help resolve this question for you by taking a solid history as well as EVOLUTION of your problem as well as offer the appropriate form of treatment for the headache even though you say it's not a big deal right now. That may be true but if you do not get on top of treating these headaches now while they are still in the more minor phase of pain and discomfort you may be allowing the genie to escape from the bottle....and then, you're going to have much more difficulty in trying to get it to go back in then, if you would never've let it out in the first place.

Don't know if that's a good analogy for you or not...my point is I think you need to be a bit more aggressive (with the help of a prescribing physician) in discovering not only the cause but squelching the daily headaches you seem to be having so as not to go down the road of converting these into either chronic daily headaches or worse yet, medication overuse type if you get stuck with just treating them on your own which has the risk of getting into too much self medication with OTC drugs and this has its own set of problems.

If you doctor is not familiar with headaches in this setting have them refer you to either a neurologist or headache specialist and whip this thing down now.

Cheers!

I hope this addresses your concerns. If so, may I ask for the favor of a HIGH STAR RATING on our interaction and some brief written feedback.

Write to me at: bit.ly/drdariushsaghafi for additional comments, concerns, or to upload information that you would like me to look at in the event you may have reports, imaging studies of the head, labs performed, or doctors' notes you'd like reviewed.

This query required 17 minutes to read, research, and compile an envoy to the patient.

P.S. I did read another query you had with another doctor asking when it would be OK to have a few beers. I recommend you not ingest alcohol to any extent right now until these headaches are brought under control. That could be a wild card factor that might escalate the problem and make it less amenable to treatment since most medications used to treat headaches interact quite a bit with alcohol.

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Brief Answer:
That's my point

Detailed Answer:
Your question goes to my point of whether or not what you were being treated for was truly a PRIMARY sinus infection. Headaches from sinus headaches have classical features which are acute and can be very painful. However, once the infection is cleared there should be a dramatic improvement in the severity and duration of headaches,

I have no information to tell you if what you have is serious or not because you've only posed a couple of questions with little information other than your symptoms of headache. Your best option to work these headaches up is to either search for a neurologist or headache specialist to do a good discovery on your symptoms which will then, lead to the answer of your last question.

I hope this addresses your concerns. If so, may I ask for the favor of a HIGH STAR RATING on our interaction and some brief written feedback.

Write to me at: bit.ly/drdariushsaghafi for additional comments, concerns, or to upload information that you would like me to look at in the event you may have reports, imaging studies of the head, labs performed, or doctors' notes you'd like reviewed.

This query required 32 minutes to read, research, and compile an envoy to the patient.

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