A Better Way to Treat a Sinus Infection
I have had an annoying sinus infection for over a week now. It may have something to do with the fact I have been on 7 planes in less than two weeks and during the month of March I was wrapping up my 25 year corporate career while juggling the launch of my new venture, writing a book, and dealing with various escapades of my two teenage sons.
Mostly it’s just been an inconvenience but one night while out-of-town on a college visit I found myself completely unable to breathe and felt like my face was going to cave in and my teeth fall out. It reminded me of the chronic sinusitis I used to get as a teenager. My well-meaning parents and doctors put me on endless courses of “the special pink medicine” known as Vibramycin, an antibiotic. I missed quite a bit of school and at one point had surgery to widen my sinuses. We now know this over-zealous approach is completely wrong and likely contributed to the health problems I encountered in my 20s and 30s.
Each 5-day course of antibiotics is estimated to wipe out up to a third of your microbiome. This is the community of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in and on you. While microscopic organisms have been painted as the enemy of humans and their elimination is the foundation of the modern medical paradigm, in fact they are critical to human health responsible for any number of processes in your body. Perhaps most crucially your microbiome is intimately involved in your immune function and wiping them out will make you more susceptible to disease.
Unless you are in optimal health and eating an exclusively whole foods diet friendly to your microbiome you may never regain these lost symbiotic friends.
In 85 per cent of cases antibiotics is not needed for a sinus infection and more likely to be harmful to your long-term health. Even if you have bright yellow discharge with or without blood (I had both this week!). Now if it’s been going on for over 10 days and shows no sign of improvement that might be a different story but try these strategies first:
Ultimately you just need to be patient with a sinus infection. It’s God’s way of getting you to slow down or maybe to alert you to a body out of balance and in need of some attention. Let me know what you’ve tried and any other traditional remedies you use.
