Why Sinusitis Is So Stubborn to Heal

"I've taken antibiotics so many times, but it keeps coming back."

This is something people who have struggled with sinusitis for a long time often say. It gets better while they are on the medication, but once they stop, it starts again. When the season changes, it returns without fail.

I see this not as the medicine being weak, but as a matter of the very structure of the disease called sinusitis.

Rhinitis and sinusitis are different diseases

A blocked nose and a runny nose look similar. So many people regard the two as differences of degree in the same disease. I do not see it that way.

Rhinitis is a problem of an open space. The mucous membrane inside the nose becomes sensitive, swells, and secretions increase. Since the space itself is open to the outside, once the swelling subsides, flow is restored.

Sinusitis is a problem of a closed space. The paranasal sinuses (副鼻洞) are empty rooms inside the bones beside the nose. Each of these rooms connects to the nose through only a single, very narrow passage.

This difference changes everything.

What happens in a closed room

When the exit of a sinus swells or becomes blocked, the following things happen inside the room, in order.

The narrow exit swells
      ↓
Secretions cannot drain out and pool
      ↓
Pressure inside the room rises
      ↓
Oxygen runs short, and the environment tilts toward acidic
      ↓
The mucosa's cleaning function (cilia) stops
      ↓
It becomes an environment where bacteria grow easily
      ↓
Inflammation worsens and the exit swells further  ← (loops back)

This loop turns on its own. It is blocked so it pools, and it pools so it becomes more blocked.

Antibiotics reduce the bacteria within this loop. That is why it gets better. But the pressure of the closed space and the blocked exit remain the same. Once you stop the medication, the loop begins to turn again.

Cilia — the nose's own cleaning device

On the sinus mucosa there are very tiny hairs. They are called cilia. These cilia move in one direction like a rippling wave, pushing mucus toward the exit.

A healthy nose cleans itself this way. What these cilia do is far greater than what antibiotics do.

The problem is that these cilia are sensitive. When pressure rises and oxygen runs short, the cilia stop moving. When the mucus becomes too sticky, they cannot push it out either.

In other words, what has truly broken down in sinusitis is not the fight against bacteria but the drainage function.

So what do we aim for

From this viewpoint, the goal of treatment changes. I look at three things.

First, lower the pressure inside the room. What has pooled must be drawn out for the exit to open.

Second, thin out the mucus. No matter how much the cilia move, sticky mucus will not be pushed along. We must reduce secretion while keeping the flow alive.

Third, get the cilia moving again. When pressure drops and oxygen returns, the cilia go back to work. Once the cleaning function returns, the bacteria naturally decrease.

Not killing the bacteria, but returning the environment to one in which bacteria cannot live. I believe this is the more fundamental direction in sinusitis.

The body is connected as one space

Here I take one more step.

Can the pressure of the sinuses be looked at in isolation? I think not. The body is a single connected fluid, and pressure is transmitted.

When the pressure inside the abdomen is high, it affects the pressure inside the chest, and that in turn affects the flow by which the veins of the head and neck drain out. When blood does not drain well from the head, the nasal mucosa is kept in a state prone to swelling.

This is why I palpate the abdomen of someone who comes in for sinusitis. People who come for the first time find it puzzling. The nose is the problem, they ask, so why look at the belly?

It is because the narrowed exit is a problem, but so is the fact that water keeps being pushed into that room.

And this is the point where herbal medicine works

The prescriptions I use for sinusitis generally aim at all three of these directions together.

• Lower the pressure inside the abdomen to reduce the pressure transmitted upward,
• Calm the excessive secretion of the mucosa while keeping the movement of the cilia alive, and
• Turn what has pooled and cannot get out in the direction of being drained.

What is interesting is that these prescriptions do not directly target the nose. The medicines that address the pressure of the abdomen and trunk work on the nose. When I first saw this result, I too was surprised, and I thought for a long time about why. The explanation I have arrived at now is the one above.

Killing them cannot be the only goal

There are clearly cases of sinusitis that require surgery. When the exit is structurally blocked, when a polyp has grown, or when it has gone on so long that the mucosa has changed irreversibly. When I see such signs, I first recommend an ENT consultation and imaging. In acute cases with fever and severe facial pain as well, antibiotics come first.

The oxygen shortage in the sinuses and the decline of ciliary function have long been studied. But on the point of connecting the pressure of the trunk to the nose, observation still runs ahead of the literature.

That said, if it keeps recurring despite repeated antibiotics, a goal other than killing is needed. Opening a path for what has pooled to drain out — that is where my care for sinusitis begins.

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Sources

• When the sinus outlet is blocked, the oxygen concentration inside that space falls — BMB Reports, 2018
• A review of why the ciliary apparatus that cleans the nose stops working — American Journal of Rhinology & Allergy, 2012

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)