Suspend-It

Last time I was mumbling about my sinusitis problem. I think it was caused by the cold weather and much stress after several weeks of retrieving data from our damn company tape drives. Good thing I finished the job and I got the week off.

After 2 days of rest and medication, the symptoms started to subside. Probably the most uncomfortable symptom about sinusitis is the nasal congestion. It’s hard to sleep, breathe, and even talk clearly when you have it. It’s because of the thick mucous is blocking your airways. You can’t smell, you can’t even taste what you’re eating, which makes you lose your appetite (which is what you don’t want to happen unless you’re in a diet). I was advised to do steam therapy while taking the medication. I poured hot water in a glass pot, covered my head with a towel (so the steam won’t escape) and slowly breathe in. After a few minutes of doing so, you will feel the thick mucous slowly dripping down and clearing your nasal cavity. The therapy really gave me quite a relief. Do try it even if you’re just having colds. It will greatly help.

“Freak weather”, as the Dutch call it, really hit us this time. It’s insanely cold, and it gets even colder everyday. In this kind of weather, flu and colds are common.

I had been having headaches and colds since last week so I consulted with a doctor. A friend of mine who gives auto insurance quotes referred me to this specialist. It turns out that my sinuses are infected. I was a bit surprised to know that I have sinusitis because no one in the family has it – I thought it was hereditary at first ^_^.

Sinuses are cavities behind the nose and forehead region. When infected, the sinus walls excrete large amounts of mucous which can trigger headaches, difficulty in breathing, and in some cases, asthma attacks. This is a bacterial infection usually triggered by stress, allergens, or cold weather.

I was asked about the color of the mucous excreted from my nose. Clear means allergic reaction, yellow to green means infection. The doctor gave me some antibiotics to fight the infection. I was also advised to do steam therapy (breathing in steam to clear the nasal passages) and take the week off.

Because sinusitis can be easily mistaken as flu or colds, many will just take over the counter drugs. It is advisable that you don’t self medicate for it can only worsen your condition.

Ahhhhh…. It’s the first working day of the year but I’m still not in the working mode. I guess I still have the holiday hangover. Good thing my boss is not around today!!! Woot!

I miss the movie marathon the whole family had last week. It’s seldom that we get to see movies together so we teamed up to turn the living room into our mini home theater. My dad set up the LCD TV and my mom prepared Buffalo wings and a healthy salad for us to dig in during the movie. I arranged the new home theater seating I bought 2 weeks ago (got them on sale at half the price). As for my younger sisters… well… they helped mom with the food tasting! We had a lot of fun.

I wish we could have more times like that. I really enjoyed bonding with my family. Oh well, it’s about break time. Coffee break!!!

LCD treadmill – There’s not much to say about this product I saw in a mall. It’s just a regular treadmill with a ridiculously large touch screen LCD in front. It looked like one of the POS systems in a department store! Haha. One thing I like about it is that you can insert a SD card in it and watch a movie while doing exercise. It lacks internet connection though, but who in the world would like to surf the net while in a treadmill anyway?

Seriously, it has some other cool features too like calorie statistics, speed, calendar, stopwatch, heart rate and BP monitor. It looks really techie but I think it’s just like other treadmills around. Not interested.