WASHINGTON 鈥� If you鈥檙e suffering from spring allergies, you may also be getting hit with pain, congestion and even fever from sinusitis. And that usually means antibiotics.
But The Wall Street Journal that there may be a better way 鈥� doing nothing.
Well, maybe not nothing exactly. But 鈥渨atchful waiting鈥� works out just about as well as antibiotics, says the American Academy of Otolaryngology 鈥� Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.
Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, chairman of otolaryngology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, tells The Wall Street Journal that 鈥淓ven if you鈥檙e really sick and have a high fever, it鈥檚 still OK to initially observe without antibiotics because all the data from more than a dozen trials don鈥檛 really show that there鈥檚 any greater benefit.鈥�
say that people with sinusitis that last 10 days or more should wait another seven days, and only start antibiotics if symptoms stay the same or get worse.
The Journal says that sinusitis usually starts as a viral infection, which antibiotics don鈥檛 help, and only turn into a bacterial infection 2 percent of the time. But doctors prescribe antibiotics to sinusitis patients 90 percent of the time 鈥� one in five times that an adult is prescribed antibiotics, it鈥檚 for sinusitis, studies show.
That leads to a lot of unnecessary antibiotic use, and that in turn leads to the development of bacterial strains that are resistant to antibiotics.
鈥淪inusitis is one of the top reasons for antibiotics,鈥� said Dr. Daniel Merenstein, of the Georgetown University Medical Center, who helped review the new guidelines before publication. 鈥淚f people would follow this it would be great because it would really decrease antibiotic resistance, which is such a big problem in the United States.鈥�
The guidelines recommend regular pain relievers such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, and saline irrigation, such as with a neti pot. And if you smoke, stop!
