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NASAL POLYPS
A study from Stockholm, Sweden shows that cutting out nasal polyps only helps to relive nasal obstruction. It does not improve a person's ability to smell or breathe.
Nasal polyps are blisters on the inner lining of the nose. The blisters hang down through the nose to form sacs of fluid. People with nasal polys are often miserable from irritation and obstruction of the passageway in their noses, usually have no allergic cause and do not benefit from allergy injections, have symptoms 12 months a years, often also have asthma, often lose their sense of taste and smell, often have severe sinus infections, and often can be so allergic to aspirin that they can die when they take it.
The only medications that help shrink polyps are cortisone-type and the usual treatment is to take a cortisone-type nasal spray that rarely keeps the polyps from returning, so the sufferer has to take cortisone pills and injections. Surgery is ineffective as the polyps return soon after they are cut out. Antibiotics can help a little, but they do not stop polyps from forming or recurring. There is some evidence that some people with polyps are infected with fungi, but they are only a small percentage of those with polyps.
I treat my patients with nasal polys with an injection of 80 mg of triamcinolone acetonide, a cortisone-type nasal spray, and clarithromycin antibiotic, 500 mg twice a day for several months. This makes them feel better, but it doe not cure their condition. See report #G220.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology February, 2001
Checked 8/9/05