I have a medical issue that’s making my life unpleasant. It started the second-to-last week of April or so, a few days prior to picking up a cold. Since then, I’ve been suffering from what I’ll describe as sinus pressure without wet congestion accompanied by a possible facial tick. It’s hard to describe exactly what I’m feeling, but it’s basically a lot of pressure behind my nose. Sometimes it’s towards the top, sometimes nearer the bottom.

A list of symptoms would include:

• A lot of pressure behind my nose

• Pressure is always present, but varies in intensity
• Pressure is sometimes up behind my eyes, sometimes lower and into my upper jaw and teeth
• For a few days my jaw was always tired. My jaw felt like I’d been gnawing stringy beef jerky before even starting to eat.
• Constant ringing in ears, though usually masked by ambient noise.
• A twitching feeling some of the time in muscles lining the nose. A few nights it’s been severe enough to make sleeping difficult. Sometimes it feels like the problem is with facial muscles, sometimes with sinuses.
• There may be a post-nasal drip but since this condition has gone on so long I can’t tell if it’s a normal volume
• The pressure is worse when I bend over.
• As far as I can tell, I have no other symptoms. I don’t have a cough, I’m not more tired than usual, or overly headachy, or achy, or anything else.
• My lymph nodes may be swollen; not sure what constitutes normal for those
• There are no signs of bacterial infection, according to primary physician.
• My nose doesn’t run.
• I have no known allergies.
• I’ve never been treated for this problem before.
• I don’t believe I’m feverish.
• From July 3 or so, the bridge of my nose has felt “crooked”. Hard to explain. The sensation is that my nose is misaligned to the left a little.
• Update from July 5: the pressure has cranked up a few notches and is now making it very difficult for me to function at work or in life.
• Update from July 8: the ENT examined CT images: no structural sinus problems, everything looks great. He did a visual inspection of sinuses using scope: no problems. He offered trigger point injection but I declined. Xylocaine or novacaine mist was blown up my nose as a test but it only took the edge off, it didn’t make a big dent. He sent me away with phrenalin forte and a saline/topical anesthetic (xylocaine) compound. The phrenalin forte is barely taking the edge off and the compound doesn’t really do anything. The pressure had migrated downward some. The upper boundary is now near the top of my top teeth with a bottom maybe 1/3 of the way down my neck. Sideways pressure throughout is the best way I can describe it. Some throbbing but mostly just pressure. The pressure equally favors both sides of my head… not left or right in particular. Phrenalin Forte dims the pressure very slightly but also seems to concentrate it behind the bottom of my nose.

And some of the things that have been tried so far:

• Reading glasses; initially thought it might be caused by eye strain.
• Generic Zyrtec and generic Flonase at the same time. Took for 9 days, no noticeable change
• CT scan without contrast on June 27 showed nothing abnormal
• A lot of saline nasal spray over the span of two days didn’t make a dent
• Humidifier and hot tea
• Neti pot – once, on July 4
• Phrenalin Forte and a saline/lidocaine nasal spray, starting on July 7. Phrenalin took some of the edge off, but not much, and the nasal spray didn’t do anything except make my nose wet.

Updates will be here:
Update from July 9: could it be toncils? They seem inflamed and my neck feels stiff, though I don’t have a lot of other pertinent symptoms.
Update from July 10: today there’s a lot of “neck pressure”, and my upper jaw is sore.

New toy. Coincidentally, our second child is due any day now.