Ask Lemmy

Neilmed nasal rinse. Super easy and helps clean out the sinus.

Im not sure if I understood everything or if someone mentioned this already but since the Neti pot already was mentioned I think this may fit.

I always inhalate the steam of a pot of hot, almost boiling water, with salt dissolved in it with a towel over the head for sinus induced headaches. This is usually my goto method for these problems because it moisturizes the sinuses. Get well soon!

Something like this:

Have you tried a Neti pot?

When you say sudafed, do you mean the real sudafed with pseudoephedrine, or is it sudafed PE with phenylepherine?

Make sure you get the real pseudoephedrine.

I oscillate between very hot water on my head to a cold cap. I have some neoprene helmet like things I keep in the freezer.

However, one thing that you may be interested in is Sumatriptan. I don’t know your situation, but I get sinus pressure during migraines, along with color changes and field of view diminishing before onset. Migraines are a very strange beast poorly understood by science and not consistent from person to person. But a shot of sumatriptan is a miracle for those it works for if you get it in time. Like, within minutes, I feel quite strange and the symptoms slow and the headache either doesn’t come or is much less severe.

I just want to clarify that sinus headaches and migraines are completely different. I’m just saying sometimes sinus issues come with migraines. This applies only to those cases. And I suspect it can be difficult to tell which is which in some cases.

Claritin has been the only over-the-counter allergy medication that has consistently worked for me. It can be expensive, depending on where one buys it, though. The knock-offs do NOT work (at least not for me).

I eat spicy food, it always does the trick for me.

Allegra, Zyrtec, or Claritin work for most people.

Try a nasal steroid like Flonase. Takes three days for full effect.

Pro tip... Azelastine, aka astepro. Works in five minutes, lasts twelve hours. It really is amazing.

Lay on your left side in the recovery position. I find it helps clear my nose when I'm stuffy.

Disclaimer: Not quite seasonal allergjes, my sinus migraine story came from a sinus infection.

When I was 19, I had a really rough sinus infection for a couple weeks. For the last few bad days of it, I had an unbearable migraine every time I would try to inhale through my nose.

I could tell that my sinuses were obviously clogged, and nothing seemed to help much. Eventually I was like fuck this, I'm gonna try my best to bust this clog loose.

So, I tried snorting in as hard as I could, like 5 or 6 times or so. And yes that was extremely painful! On the last snort, a wad of extra thick green snot mixed with bits of semi-solid blood clots about the size of a 1 inch sphere busted loose, and my headache instantly disappeared. 👍

Within about 2 or 3 days I was basically back to normal, and thankfully I've never had such a bad sinus infection again.

Good luck OP, hopefully you're not dealing with a severe sinus infection like I did. Hopefully another commenter's suggestion helps, and hope you get better soon.

Don't sleep on aspirin and netti pot.

At some point blowing your noise over and over leads you to to basically harm your sinuses and swelling that makes it hard to breathe.

Source: had to do it literally this morning. Worked all day.

Also, avoid inflammatory things like tons of carbs, delicious red meat, whiskey, and beer, etc.

Have you tried tylenol and ibuprofen together?

Also, do a covid test.

If you are in the US, try Allermi. It’s essentially a very diluted form of oxymetazoline (afrin). It turns out that in small doses over longer periods, you can get consistent congestion relief without the risk rebound. It’s the only thing that has ever worked for me.