Avoid dairy and caffeine

Doesn't caffeine work for some people's headaches?

Yup. Many of the standard OTC migraine treatments have caffeine. Caffeine can help stave one off for me, although prescription drugs are better.

Caffeine is great for a lot of headaches, but not so great for sinuses. Also, it tends to dehydrate a person, and with a sinus condition, staying really hydrated seems to help.

Actually? I'm more worried about the Strep that's going around at the office, than the scrape at this point. I do not want to deal with that.

Oh Teppy, what Betsy said about soup or something else with lots of capsaicin (other hot stuff seems to help me, too). Also? A few times I have had a sinus headache while cooking, I've noticed that when I'm slicing a raw onion, it gets better after the onion induced tears start. I never remember to try the onion thing when I have the headache, but am not cooking, though.

When I was little and had sinus headaches, my mother used to make me tent a towel over my head over a bowl of steaming water with menthol crystals dissolved in it. It really worked well.

I was taking a big gulp of my coffee as I read the past 8 posts. I managed to swallow it before I laughed.

If I can't get my sinus headaches reined in, they turn into migraines. (I didn't think that was possible -- it seemed like apples and oranges -- but 2 ENTs told me that, yes, sinus headaches can turn into migraines. Which I'd like to avoid. [And 2 Ents told me to respect the trees. Which helped my headaches not at all.]) And it feels like this one is on the border of turning into a migraine.

I'll have to try the hot shower method. The problem, as near as I can tell, is that even though the sudafed un-stuffed my nose, there's a tremendous amount of pressure behind my right cheekbone. (It's always my right. I have no idea why.) If I press really hard on my cheekbone, it's like the internal and external pressure balance, and it stops hurting for a minute. But I can't really do that tonight, b/c I need both hands to deal. Meh.

Any Chicagoistas around? I want to go furniture hunting this weekend, and the Target I go to in Milwaukee ususally has some interesting stuff, and I've seen some good stuff on their website. But the Target near me (Diversey) sucks ass. Anyone know where a better one is?

(Actually, I found exactly what I wanted on their site but it's not available in stores so big shipping cost, plus I don't really want to buy it sight unseen. Plus - they don't even have the dimensions listed, so even though I can pretty much tell it'll fit, based on those things I don't want it on principle alone.)

Daniel, what they all said. You are very careful and conscientious, and are to be applauded for taking good care of yourself. I hope the knee heals quickly and cleanly, with no complications.

It's very shiny out there here, too. Unfortunately today's plans call for going through DH's extensive collection of t-shirts and donating 9/10ths of them to either Goodwill, NamVets, or both. But when I call the vets, if they'll come upstairs to fetch a couch? We can go sofa-shopping, yay!

I have suffered from sinus headaches all my life. The cure that always works for me is the combination of: 1) aany nsaids including plain old asprin 2) cold wet cloth over forhead, eyes and sinuses 3) 1 hour laying back seated comfortably with eyes closed.

Not the usual medically indicated treatment, so don't know if it would work for anyone else. My theory is that the combination of nsaids and cold is anti-inflamitory and works for me because my problem is more inflamation that stuffedness. But if the other remedies don't work, the cold cloth and rest might be worth trying as a followup. And as others said purely a sinus remedy. Would be surprised if it did much for migrane.