Hi, I've recently been diaognoised with a Staph sinus infection and I am currently on Levaquin to stop the infection. I've noticed a clearer head, less congestion but still a little dizzy after ten days on the anitbiotic. I'm also experiencing difficulty in breathing could this be related? The ENG test at the ENT doctors office came back okay. Sure wish I felt better. Can the infection spread to the lungs?

Finally, a topic I know something about.

Yes, sinus infections can trigger asthma attacks. This is a problem we've experienced repeatedly with my four-year-old. He'd get a sinus infection (actually, *chronic* sinus infections) and end up on Orapred for 5 days, on top of Amoxicillan AND his regular asthma meds.

Ultimately, we had to have his adenoids removed to prevent further infections. It didn't completely alleviate the problem, so we've had to add Nasonex to his daily meds for the time being. Not happy about the additional steroids -- but it definitely helps.

Hope this helps, and that you're feeling better soon.

Aimee
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Yup, sinus infections can trigger asthma...not sure if the infection can spread or not, though...but from my personal experience, I'd say yes. A whilel back I had a sinus infection which cleared up after antiobiotics, but my ear congestion never went away...so I went back to the doc, and by this time I had a bad cough...he put me on another round of antibiotics and everything cleared up. Not sure if the cough was related to the previous sinus infection or not though. But that sure made me wonder...

evertime i get a sinus infection my asthma acts up and then shortly after i end up with broncitis. always call the dr. right away before it gets out of control.

There are two main things that causes my 4 year old daughter's ashtma attacks, allergies and sinus infections. Actually the two play the roll together. My daughter's sinuses have been so bad that she has had complete sinus surgery 4 times. How it works for my little girl is that her body gets triggered by an allergen, turns into a sinus infection, triggers her asthma. When she had her sinus surgery, it did get some better. She had more room for things to flow in her sinuses. So, I guess my answer is YES, sinus infections can trigger ashtma attacks.
I hope you are feeling better soon! ;)

Thanks for all the help. I had a CT scan of my sinus area and will be going back to the ENT doc Monday morning. Going to push the hard to breathe feeling, it seems to come and go but more when the temperature rises??

When the temperature rises, does the humidity go up? Sometimes humid places make me short of breath a bit. :)

MOST DEFINATELY!! I have asthma and the things that trigger mine the most is dust, and sinus infections, and I do have hayfever, so that is another culprit. I just recently had a sinus infection and if I don't get on antibiotics right away, like within 24 hours, my asthma gets really bad. Well this time, I didn't make it in time and I ended up in the ER taking breathing treatments and was put on predisoine for 5 days (40 mg a day) which is a high dosage, needless to say it didn't do much to improve anything, I had to take daily (4 times a day) breathing treatments and it lasted 4 weeks, but September is "asthma" month and that is when all the allergans kick up, so I was miserable, I can relate, people with asthma have it SO much harder when it comes to sinus infections and allergy seasons...I can't imagine NOT having a nebulizer when syptoms get so bad, I would check into getting one, its actually a life saver!

Alleysmom

I'd be very carefull about sinus surgery with your child. Sometimes when doctors do sinus surgery, they also remove turbinate tissue in the nose and do not tell the patient that they did. Its easier to perform sinus surgery if the turbinates are decreased in size.
Please visit www.emptynosesyndrome.org to learn more about what i'm talking about.
We started this site to inform the public about the potential downfalls of nasal surgery.


David