Sinus Allergy Remedies

Allergies can affect just about any part of the body and with sinus allergies it is the lining of the sinuses that is inflamed.

The sinuses are odd really. They are spaces in the bones of the head that we are completely unconscious of until they start to hurt or get congested. There are sinuses in the bones of the forehead and around the eyes and all of them can be triggered into inflammation – called sinusitis – by an allergen, a bacterium or a virus.

Although the trigger can be different, the response will be the same – inflammation because inflammation is a standard procedure the body uses when it reacts to a trigger substance and attempts to heal the damage caused by the bacteria or pollen or other irritant.

Before we look at remedies let’s just look at the symptoms

Sinus Allergy Symptoms

The symptoms you experience from a sinus allergy may include the following

•    Headache
•    Tenderness in the cheeks
•    Blocked nose and difficulty breathing
•    Loss of sense of smell
•    Runny nose and congestion

If the irritation and inflammation is prolonged polyps may occur. These are small grape like swellings in the nasal passage which obstruct breathing.

So what action can you take – apart from reaching for your meds that is.

Sinus Allergy Remedies and Action Steps

The first Allergy Action Step I always take and always advise is to look at your vitamin C intake and probably increase it. To deal with allergies you need to us an anti histamine and my choice is to use a natural anti-histamine like vitamin C. Your dosage is an individual matter and is best arrived at with the help of a specialist in Nutritional Medicine but taking a 1 gram dose of vitamin C daily is a good start. My vitamin C intake is around 5 grams a day and more if I experience any symptoms.

Sensible measures to avoid the trigger for your sinus problem make sense and you have to figure that out! It could be a pet or pollen or perhaps even a food. This makes it difficult sometimes to sort out what is responsible and perhaps keeping a daily journal may help. You can notice that each time you visit a certain place or eat a certain food your sinuses play up. Then you have choice about how to react to that – either by avoidance or with fortification with extra remedies – vitamin C for example.

Nasal Irrigation is an option too. This just means using salt water – saline to flush the nasal passages. This is an old traditional measure and you can use a simple Neti Pot as it is called or you can go high tech and use a kind of little pump system.

Herbal Remedies For Sinus Inflammation

I’m not a herbalist but here are some simple herbal remedies that have been used traditionally for thousands of years such as a tea made from Lemon Balm. You can pick this up at a health shop or even grow it in your garden or even in a flower pot and simply steep a few leaves in hot water to make the tea.

Another effective and ancient herbal tea is Ginger tea which can made at home simply by grating an inch or so of root ginger into a pan and simmering it for 10 minutes.  Sieve and serve with a dash of honey!

More herbal remedies coming soon – but feel free to suggest some in the comment section.

Also check out this post I wrote about using Neti Pots and similar products to help cleanse the nasal and sinus passages.