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Dr. Larian: Allergies are very common in the nose area. Our environment has a lot of material
in it that people can become sensitive to and that really is an allergy - an overreaction
to something in our environment. When you overreact to something, in the environment,
what happens to your nose is that it can swell up and produce secretions, the mucous that
ends up in the nose, just like when you have a cold; that's a reaction to a virus.
People with allergies will constantly have this problem when they have a runny nose,
swelling and difficulty breathing and mucous dripping down in the back of their throat.
The problem that arise from allergies besides the nuisance of these sensations is the fact
that the sinuses, which are cavities in our nose next to our nose that have tiny openings
into our nose, can get blocked too, from the swelling.
The opening to the sinuses is very small and narrow and ant swelling in the nose can obstruct
that opening and cause the mucous that's in the sinus to collect and get infected.
When a patient comes to the office with sinus problems or allergy problems, the first thing
that we do is to get them a history, to see how extensive is their problem, how long have
they been having it, or if we can figure out just by talking to them what's leading to
the problem. Once we figure out these isolated issues then
we move on to doing an exam. Then we try to come up with a treatment protocol to treat
the allergies and then the sinuses themselves. Allergies are treated mostly by conservative
measures first: air filters mattress and pillow covers, getting the rooms, the house cleaner
in terms of the allergy problems. Then moving up to nasal irrigation and nasal washes and
then down to medications, nose sprays and pills.
And then if those don't work, we can get imaging like CAT scans and then move on to surgery
if the need arises. This process usually takes months and months and months.
Once you've convinced yourself that you've done everything medically, to clear out the
sinuses, to control the allergy, if those fail, then sinus surgery is what's left to
do.