A seemingly harmless child's runny nose can lead to such a serious illness as sinusitis, which is much more difficult to treat. In order to prevent complications, it is important to diagnose the disease in time and begin treatment.
Causes and symptoms of sinusitis
With the seeming monotony of sinusitis symptoms, expressed not only in a feeling of nasal congestion, purulent contents of the sinuses and headaches, there can be many reasons for this disease. Distinguish between acute sinusitis and chronic. The first is especially common in childhood and can be the result of a previous runny nose, infectious and viral diseases. Sinusitis also occurs with weakened immunity, when there are enlarged adenoids. In the chronic form, sinusitis passes in the absence of timely treatment of acute inflammation.
One of the characteristic signs of sinusitis in a child may be snoring at night, as well as an attempt to breathe through the mouth.
Complications after sinusitis
The most harmless of them, if such a concept can be applied at all to the disease, is a change in the nasal mucosa, which occurs against the background of a prolonged inflammatory process in the nasopharynx. As a result, it ceases to perform barrier functions for viruses and the child begins to get sick more often. In addition to infection of the maxillary sinuses, the infection can also enter the eye sockets and ears. Therefore, otitis media are one of the satellites of sinusitis. And hearing loss against the background of this disease can, in principle, develop without symptoms and be detected only during examination by a narrow specialist. But the worst consequences of sinusitis occur when the infection enters the brain, causing meningitis and meningoencephalitis.
It should also be remembered that shortness of breath due to nasal congestion prevents oxygen from entering the brain in the proper volume, which can contribute to developmental delays.
How to treat sinusitis in children and prevent its consequences
Complications can be prevented only with complex treatment. An important part of it is the lavage of the sinuses from the accumulated mucus, which is a source of microbes. For this, both saline solutions and ordinary sea water are used. Recommended for sinusitis and physiotherapy, but only a doctor can decide whether they are appropriate. The younger the child, the more serious the approach to treatment, up to hospitalization. Concomitant therapy is the use of antibiotics, as well as drugs that reduce the swelling of the mucous membrane. An extreme measure used in the absence of treatment success is a puncture of the sinuses, in which their contents are surgically removed, and drugs that block inflammation are injected directly into its source.
