sinusitis

[critch]

i've been to the hospital today, and i've got told I have inflamed sinuses and sinusitis (which i already knew) and p[ossibly rhinitis too. I need to know if this will affect my chances of getting a JAA Class 1 medical. There's nothing on the CAA website and was wondering if someone here could possibly give me some advice. The sooner i know the better as it's going to affect what plans i have for the summer
thanks
andy

[Flyin'Dutch']

C,

No black and white answer here.

Depends on what is going on and how bad this problem is can make the difference between no problem and a no-no (although would have to be pretty bad for the latter to be the case)

A lot of people are susceptible to the occasional bout of sinusitis and get by well the rest of the time and just have to lay off the flying for the week or so that it takes to get over this.

Some people however suffer with chronic sinusitis which commonly is caused by some allergy or chronic irritation and can be accompanied by nasal polyps.

The staple treatment for this is topical (local) steroids but sometimes people will need some surgery as well especially if the polyps have become big(gish).

So it really depends on how badly you are affected and what the cause is and how effective treatment will be.

If you have very bad chronic sinusitis chances are that you will not enjoy flying due to the discomfort you will get whilst ascending and more so descending.

Talk to your ENT surgeon about likely successrate of planned treatment and once that is established talk to the CAA @ Gatwick.

Best of luck

FD

[critch]

well the specialist said i shouldn't need an operation, it depends on what the CAA want. If necessary i can provide scans to show i dont suffer that badly from it, and i can fly easily without discomfort, only get the ears popping. i had a camera up my nose and thats how he diagnosed the problem. I'm going back in 2 months to see how treatment is going (got nose sprays, drops and antibiotics) and to see if i have any allergies.

[monkeyboy]

Critch, what type of flying are you doing at the moment?

The reason why I ask is because during my PPL and CPL training, if I ever flew with a slight cold (I know they say you shouldn't)!! I never experienced any problems with my nose in the descents simply because we didn't go high enough. We used to go up to about 3000 - 4000 feet.

However, when I did my IR training I once flew with a cold and in the descent down from FL90 my sinuses gave me so much grief that I had to hand control over to my instructor because I was in so much agony. My eyes were watering and my sinuses were giving out shooting pains.

This really brought home the saying "Never fly with a cold" because until that day I'd never really seen it as a problem.

So, if your sinuses are just temp inflamed then FlyingD is right, you just wouldn't fly for a few days. I hope this is the case for you and that you'll be soon back on your feet/in the air!

PS: I find the Becanase nasal spray works quite well on the odd occasion that I have to use it, and my AME doesn't mind me using it either. There's also one called Otrivine that I've heard mentioned on here before but I don't know if that's one of the CAA-approved sprays or not.

Good luck!

MB