It’s gone nuts, the weather, and suddenly I am floored. I am reminded of my student days and also my days in tourism, 30 to 40 years ago, when this also happened often.
Sinus aches.
Back then, at a clinic, after they drilled through the cartilage and placed drainage tubes, my sinuses drained, but they soon filled up again. I didn’t know that I had hay fever because I was too clogged up all the time to still be able to notice much. It did affect my muscles, though.
Someone told me that chronic sinus issues can be caused by suppressed anger.
That’s the kind of thing women get to hear a lot.
In Florida, all of this magically disappeared. The hot high humidity and relatively clean air there were bliss.
Now that I am back in the same country as where I was 30, 40 years ago, where I am also plagued much more strongly by hay fever again, the same problem is kicking in.
Today, I can barely see straight. The only thing I can do, really, is sleep.
When I first started noticing the return of my sinus aches, I also noticed that this coincided with the skin of my inflated exercise ball being really tight. Low atmospheric pressure! Nothing to do with anger issues, then.
Yesterday, I noticed that it actually got worse at the start of a shower, but subsided again after the shower. Yes, low atmospheric pressure!
During my student days, I often popped painkillers on a daily basis. Particularly drinking tons of coffee helped, but there are limits to how much coffee you can still – or want to – drink.
A saline nasal rinse can also have a positive effect because it can help open up some of those many spaces that are hidden behind our eyes, cheekbones, nose and forehead.
My middle sister has always been plagued by migraines. I’ve had only one, so far, when there were too many paint fumes from the flat under mine in Southampton, for too long. I had no idea what hit me. I thought I might actually be dying. It was that bad. I eventually figured it out. It went away and it didn’t come back.
Maybe what my sister calls migraines is what I call bad sinus aches. Can’t see straight, don’t want to be in the light, want to be in a dark room, close my eyes and sleep, waiting for this to pass. I can’t think straight and my mood tanks too. (That makes it a bad time for negotiations of any kind.)
It always passes. So at least that is good.
It is one of the reasons why it is great to work for yourself because if sinus issues make you oversleep – which they can often do – it’s almost never a problem. Plus, do whatever you need to do that helps. You can even go for a walk after it passes. (Going outside – fresher air – can help.)
I often wear a headband. It helps.
Apparently, 7 out of 10 people get headaches due to atmospheric pressure variations. Pressure drops, specifically. So it’s not us. It’s sheer mechanics. It’s the weather.
In the morning, I’d basically slept till 11. During the day, the pressure fluctuated. You can actually feel things move in your sinuses at times, and your ears and eyes can also be affected. I fell asleep at around 7pm, woke up at 10pm, very dizzy. Fell asleep again shortly after, still fully dressed. Woke up at 5:45am. Feeling better and most of the pressure is gone but not all yet. Went back to sleep, then woke at 7:15.
As the weather was really warm on Saturday, then tanked and turned very unsteady, we must have had really crazy pressure fluctuations that my clogged sinuses couldn’t equilibrate quickly enough, also during the day on Monday and yesterday.
