Bacteria Bacteria

I am writing this in the middle of the covid19 crisis and nobody knows yet where the journey will go with that virus. While people freak out about it I personally have another nasty problem not with a virus but with bacteria. I have sinusitis now for 6 months straight going into month 7. I’ve had problems with sinusitis my entire life, which seems to be in the genes since my mother and sister also had/have the same sinusitis story their whole lives. In the past I got sinusitis two times, sometimes only one time, sometimes three times per year. I cannot remember a single year where I had zero sinusitis. Depending on the severity, it was gone after 2 to 6 weeks.
Last year in August, while on that cruise in Norway I caught another sinusitis. It went along normally and seemed to get better. Then I returned to Japan and after a week or two it got worse again and suddenly for the first time in my life it was stinking inside my nose (very yucky, I don’t recommend it). So I went to the otolaryngologist – since that’s a mouth full, let me use the German word for it, which is HNO derived from Hals = throat, Nase = nose and Ohren = ears doctor. I had seen this HNO before for my “normal” sinusitis” and he gave me the usual antibiotics and slime loosening stuff. It didn’t get better, fever went down but all the rest stayed. He changed the antibiotics. It didn’t get better. I asked him what to do, he shrugged and said I was getting “the strongest” antibiotics already.
Frustrated, I turned to the Internet and started reading stuff about sinusitis (bad idea) and got scared reading articles about fungi in the nose and what not. I went to a new HNO, that was now in October, told him my story and he did an x-ray of my head. Funnily left side was okay (looks dark on the x-ray = air) right side was “white” = stuffed with stuff. New doc ranted about former doc who didn’t even take an x-ray. New doc told me considering that whiteness it’ll take three months or so until I get better. He gave me a different set of antibiotics.
Then started two months of taking some antibiotics, stopping, no improvement, again antibiotics, stopping, no improvement… although at least the stinky stuff stopped.
HNO always gave me the same meds and did basically nothing else. In December I decided to stop going and wanted to test whether the shock of warm weather in Cambodia would help. It didn’t, so in January I went to the third HNO and told him my story. Now this guy had interesting things to say. First of all it’s unusual that I have sinusitis only on the right side. There are two popular reasons for this, it comes from a bad tooth = teeth bacteria leak into the sinuses, or “cancer”. YIKES. Of course I do not like the latter word. But, when the doc said teeth, I almost screamed. In July I suddenly had bad toothache upper right under a 20 year old crown/bridge. I went to my dentist just before leaving for Wacken/Norway. He did not break down the bridge, since I’d be flying the next day or so and gave me antibiotics (only 4 days) and pain killers. The tooth became quiet, was not ideal, but not actively hurting and I let it be.
Because what third HNO said matches with right upper side tooth trouble, I got convinced that it’s that tooth indeed. HNO said, go to the dentist first of all and treat that tooth, then we see what comes next. So this is the stage where I am now, the bridge is broken down and I had four root canal cleaning sessions already. The second was really bad and painful = indicating an infection = bacteria. The third and fourth root canal sessions were less painful = infection is dying down as it seems. HNO is curbing the enthusiasm though saying it will still take two months or so to heal the sinusitis.
He gave me new meds for “widening” the stuck canals in my nose and also, guess what antibiotics. The thing is though that the doses is not so high and I’m supposed to take them regularly for the entire 2 months, not stop and go like from HNO 2. If the tooth action does not improve the nose situation, we have to look at other options, CT scan, exclude the scary cancer option, and maybe an operation to open a “window” in the sinus to drain the goo. HNO 3 seems competent (though I thought that of HNO 2 also in the beginning) but at least he has now a plan with various options that seem valid and there was/is an inflammation at the root of that cursed tooth after all as evidenced by the dentist. I am pissed though that HNO 1 and 2 did not even come upon the idea. While we have of course majorly advanced in terms of medicine to let’s say a hundred years ago, to me the field of medicine is still one great game of guesswork. If it ain’t obvious like a broken bone we basically have not much of a clue.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that HNO3 found the reason = the tooth and that I will be rid of this darn, nasty, bothersome sinusitis by spring! There have been two, three nights already where the right sinus didn’t swell shut completely, I see light at the end of the tunnel, hopefully!