Medical Treatments for Nasal Congestion

The physicians at the Nasal & Sinus Center of Austin have extensive training in allergy evaluation and management. It is important to have allergy testing done to understand the different allergens that you may be sensitive to and to what degree. Specific recommendations can then be made for avoiding or reducing exposure to these allergens.

This allergy testing can be performed through our office with a simple blood test. The allergy testing results are combined with a thorough history and detailed endoscopic evaluation of the nasal cavity, which is performed in our office. We can also perform high-resolution CT scan imaging in our office to see if anatomical issues or infection are complicating the treatment of your nasal allergies.

In addition, our ENTs will conduct a thorough evaluation to determine if the congestion and discharge may be from non-allergic causes. A symptom-specific approach is then used to treat the allergy complaints and provide safe and effective control of even the worst allergy complaints.

Some of the most frustrated patients are those that have suffered from allergies their whole life just to be told when they finally get tested that they don't have any allergies.

This group of patients has a disease called nonallergic rhinitis. They suffer with all the same complaints of nasal congestion, pressure, sinus pain, and runny nose, but they are not reacting to common allergens. They typically are responding to changes in temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure, as well as other environmental changes such as pollution.

Some patients may suffer from both nonallergic rhinitis and true allergic rhinitis. These patients require a different approach to successfully manage their allergies.

Certain topical medications have been developed specifically to assist these patients. Some of the standard allergy medications can be helpful as well. Many times, the patient suffers from nasal obstruction and sinus headache that will not respond to any medications.

These patients will often get significant relief with office-based turbinate reduction and balloon sinuplasty techniques. These minimally invasive procedures can typically be performed as a simple office procedure with quick recovery and fast results.

Many different problems can contribute to your stuffy nose. Finding and fixing those problems is what we do every day.

Just ask the patient treated for years for allergies, when she really had a hard-to-find septal deviation that was easily corrected, relieving her symptoms. Or the patient who had multiple surgeries for polyps caused by a fungal allergy that our doctors cured with a mixture of compounded nasal medicines. 

Then there are the thousands of patients who were beyond help until they were treated with culture-directed antibiotic/antifungal therapy.