About the Nose and Sinuses

Your nose does a lot more than just giving you a sense of smell and creating a point of interest in the middle of your face. In addition to smell and letting us breath with our mouths closed, the nose also filters the air that goes into our lungs. Dust, viruses, and bacteria are trapped in the mucus in the nasal cavities. That mucus then moves to the stomach where the germs can be killed by stomach acid.

The air we breathe is also warmed and moisturized as it travels through these passages so that when it gets to the lungs it's warm and saturated with water.

Sinuses

Sinuses are empty chambers between the bones in your head. They are usually filled with air and aid speech by resonating and vibrating.

You have four pairs of sinuses, each producing mucus that drains into the back of your throat and is swallowed. The draining action is helped along by tiny hair-like "cilia" that sweep the mucus through the sinuses. This drainage helps move the dust, bacteria, and viruses into the stomach as we mentioned above.

As long as there are no drainage problems, your sinuses can happily do their job. When they can't drain, however, you can have problems. Problems with drainage can be a result of:

• Colds or other infections
• Allergies
• Polyps
• Deviated septum

If any of these problems are present, you may suffer from a stuffy or runny nose, headache, sore throat, cough (due to thick and excessive mucus drainage), and more. Your nose and sinuses are producing extra mucus to try to wash away the problem. You may notice this extra mucus in the back of your throat (you probably don't notice the normal mucus). It is called post nasal drip. When this mucus is green or yellow and thick and sticky, you may have sinusitis.

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