Posted by Victor on November 20, 2001 at 10:36:24:
In Reply to: New Doctors, Same Old BS posted by Tom Agan on November 20, 2001 at 01:42:32:
case, mostly on the right side, they plug up tighter than a drum at the onset of the headache developing into a constant flesh tearing pain behind the right eye that extends back to the right ear, and at times down to the teeth where you swear you have 30 some odd toothaches. The eye turns beet red and eventually tears. Unlike the dull pain of a sinus headache or infection, this pain can leave just as quick as it came. During this pain period, each second seems like an eternity.
There is swelling taking place and if left alone, after some infinitely period of time, say 45 minutes, the swelling will go down, air can be drawn through the plug nostrils and in my case, I will actually sneeze and literally blow the headache away. Some attempts to shorten this deswelling time like ice packs or taking red hot horse radish may shorten this time. Then they may be counter productive as well, who knows?
I think there is some relationship to the mucous membrane and these headaches, the head seems to have more passages than tunnels in an ant hill. I did have an MRI during a cluster, and the darkened areas pretty well plotted the pain areas from the inlet of the nose to the rear of my eye. I gather that swelling must be pinching nerves that causes that severe pain as there is no evidence of someone pounding railroad spike in my eye.
All I get from my neuro is more pills to try and of course, O2 that is now my final answer to these headaches.
Whether your new doctor is on to something remains a mystery, would be nice if he presented some case histories of proven success. I believe the current treatments all deal somehow with the swelling as I call it, blood vessel constrictors or lowering blood pressure with the other method of deadening the nerve ends with powerful pain killers or pyschotropic drugs.
I haven't heard of scraping the sinus linings, or the passages leading to the sinuses, but from the surface, it seems damn scary, may irritate the passages and cause an unbelievable cluster. I tried internal nose reconstruction surgery about 20 years ago, talk about going from the frying pan to the fire...