PERSONAL HEALTH : What’s Your Sinus? A Hole in the Head

Today’s science lesson, boys and girls, is sinuses--those sometimes annoying holes in your head. Just the facts:

* 33 million Americans suffer from sinus disease every year.

* Sinus disease is the country’s No. 1 chronic ailment.

* Sinus trouble takes many forms. It can feel like a migraine or like an abscessed tooth.

* Sinuses are four pairs of air-filled chambers. (Frontal sinuses are above the nose, sphenoid just outside each eye, ethmoid just inside each eye close to the nose and the maxillary in the front of the cheeks.)

* Sinuses are lined with the same membrane as the nose and help produce some of the quart or so of mucus manufactured every day.

* Sinuses serve a purpose: they lighten the skull and add resonance to the voice. (Blocked sinuses equal nasal voice.)

* Only a thin membrane separates the sinuses and the brain, and untreated sinus infections can lead to encephalitis, blindness and other neurological problems.

* Sinus patients often try to self-medicate, usually without success. Americans spend $1.5 billion a year on over-the-counter drugs.

* To kill bacteria in the deep recesses of the sinuses, antibiotics are needed.