New way to treat Sinusitis

April 2, 2009

Hi Everyone,

I know this isn't strictly about Xolair and I'm sorry, but many of us

asthma people also have sinus issues, so I thought this was worth sharing. Last

fall I had a sinus infection which would not go away, it turned out to be MRSA

and Pseudomonas, I ended up with a PICC line (an IV you can have at home that

goes directly to your heart) had some pretty weird and serious reactions to one

of the PICC drugs (kidney failure) and was taken off the PICC. I still had the

sinus infection, so I was put on an oral med and another PICC drug. Turns out I

happen to be in 1% of patients taking the oral med to develop pancreatitis from

it. Anyway, the infection was never completely treated but the ENT and the

Infectious Disease doctors I was seeing were both in agreement that it needed

treatment, but both were afraid (I don't really blame them) to treat me due to

my weird reactions. Finally towards the end of January, my PICC nurse (who has

now become a friend in all of this) recommended I see the head of ENT at

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Well it took me a looooooong time to actually get an appointment with him,

but I had my appointment last week and he's actually got a new way to treat

while avoiding side-effects which is pretty cool. It's called SinusDynamics, it

involves inhaling antibiotics from a nasal nebulizer. I have done only 3

treatments so far so I'm not that fast at it yet, the instructions say a

treatment should last 3 minutes, mine are lasting about 20, but that will

hopefully change. The actual machine is really tiny, and completely silent. It

runs on a battery-pack so it's portable which is good because my primary wants

to see it so I'll bring it with me to my next Xolair. You are only supposed to

take short breaths through your nose and kind of 'snort' the medicine, it's very

strange because I'm so used to taking big breaths with my regular neb. I have to

really focus . I was prescribed the same antibiotic that my pulmo uses with

his Cystic Fibrosis patients, Tobi (tobramycin), but that isn't the only drug,

the doctor can choose from 12 different antibiotics, 3 anti-fungals, and 2

steroids. The website recommends it for allergies, and all kinds of acute and

chronic sinusitis. I'm on this for 3 weeks, and I hope it works, if it does it

definitely beats treating a sinus infection other ways! Just thought I'd share,

hopefully treatments are getting easier/more targeted!

Meagan

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