Hi Marcia,

There is more than one answer to your symptoms, and the only true way to find out what is going on is to see your doctor. I know you said you were trying to cure this on your own, but it's been a month or more and you are still having problems. While online sites are great for getting the information you need to ask all the right questions, they can not take the place of your doctor's sound medical advice.

Here are some links to information you might find helpful. I hope you will at least call your doctor to get some advice over the phone.

There is a great overview here about what allergies are, what they do to your system, some of the causes of allergic reactions, symptoms, treatments available and testing to confirm the diagnosis and determine the cause. Once you have been diagnosed with allergies, your doctor may prescribe medications to help control some of the symptoms and inflammation. You can read about medications commonly prescribed here in the drugs database. If your issue ends up being sinus related, you can read about chronic sinusitis here.

If you are taking antibiotics when you have not been diagnosed properly you are putting yourself in a less than advantageous position. There are several reasons why this is not good. First, the antibiotic you are taking might not be the type that will fight the germ you are aiming for. If that is the case, taking it will not only do nothing to the bug, it can create a situation where your body develops an immunity to the drug making it ineffective the next time it is prescribed for you.

Also, when you take an antibiotic for less time than recommended (like using a partal prescription left over from the last time) it does not have enough umph to kill the infection and leaves an environment for the infection to become immune to the antibiotic. So the next time your doctor will have to prescribe something more agressive and strong to overcome the same infection.

Augmentin (Amoxicillin-clavulanate)  An article outlining research about sinusitis by Rick Ansorge, a reporter for Health Day says that research has determined that using  antibiotics is considered useless for most cases of sinusitis. Antibiotics are only effective on sinus infections that are bacterial which is a very small percentage. You can read the entire article here. The bright side is that Augmentin is the only antibiotic considered effective for certain cases of acute sinusitis.

I hope there is something here that helps you. Please stay in touch and let us know how you are doing!

Vicki M