Neilmed nasal rinse. Super easy and helps clean out the sinus.

Am an RN.

1. When you elevate the head of your bed (In this case to help the fluid drain out of your head / sinuses), don't put the extra pillows under your head, put them under the mattress. you'll fall to the side as the pillow pile collapses too much to be useful while you're half awake, but if the whole head is up you just gotta wiggle your way back up if you wake up congested. You can also stuff extra blankets and stuffed animals or whatever else you have under there for extra lift (although at a certain point if you don't have a footboard the mattress will start sliding down. You could also try sleeping in a recliner chair if you have one.

2. All fluid used in a neti-pot MUST be sterile, or you'll get brain worms / amoebas. You can get sterile saline from the wound care / bandage aisle in the pharmacy, or you can make it at home but make sure you let the solution cool so that it is NOT boiling before putting it in the neti pot.

3. Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat with slippery elm is the GOAT for sore and scratchy throats, which can happen as the fluid drains.

Also did you take real sudafed or fake sudafed? Phenylephrine is literally a placebo. Pseudoephedrine is the stuff you want but you may need to show ID for it because it can be used to make meth.

Have you tried a Neti pot?

Im not sure if I understood everything or if someone mentioned this already but since the Neti pot already was mentioned I think this may fit.

I always inhalate the steam of a pot of hot, almost boiling water, with salt dissolved in it with a towel over the head for sinus induced headaches. This is usually my goto method for these problems because it moisturizes the sinuses. Get well soon!

Something like this:

I oscillate between very hot water on my head to a cold cap. I have some neoprene helmet like things I keep in the freezer.

However, one thing that you may be interested in is Sumatriptan. I don’t know your situation, but I get sinus pressure during migraines, along with color changes and field of view diminishing before onset. Migraines are a very strange beast poorly understood by science and not consistent from person to person. But a shot of sumatriptan is a miracle for those it works for if you get it in time. Like, within minutes, I feel quite strange and the symptoms slow and the headache either doesn’t come or is much less severe.

I just want to clarify that sinus headaches and migraines are completely different. I’m just saying sometimes sinus issues come with migraines. This applies only to those cases. And I suspect it can be difficult to tell which is which in some cases.

Claritin has been the only over-the-counter allergy medication that has consistently worked for me. It can be expensive, depending on where one buys it, though. The knock-offs do NOT work (at least not for me).

When you say sudafed, do you mean the real sudafed with pseudoephedrine, or is it sudafed PE with phenylepherine?

Make sure you get the real pseudoephedrine.

Allegra, Zyrtec, or Claritin work for most people.

Try a nasal steroid like Flonase. Takes three days for full effect.

Pro tip... Azelastine, aka astepro. Works in five minutes, lasts twelve hours. It really is amazing.

I eat spicy food, it always does the trick for me.

Make a cuo of tea. Boiling hot. And breathe over it. Works well for me.

Don't sleep on aspirin and netti pot.

At some point blowing your noise over and over leads you to to basically harm your sinuses and swelling that makes it hard to breathe.

Source: had to do it literally this morning. Worked all day.

Also, avoid inflammatory things like tons of carbs, delicious red meat, whiskey, and beer, etc.

Have you tried tylenol and ibuprofen together?

Also, do a covid test.

Lay on your left side in the recovery position. I find it helps clear my nose when I'm stuffy.

Disclaimer: Not quite seasonal allergjes, my sinus migraine story came from a sinus infection.

When I was 19, I had a really rough sinus infection for a couple weeks. For the last few bad days of it, I had an unbearable migraine every time I would try to inhale through my nose.

I could tell that my sinuses were obviously clogged, and nothing seemed to help much. Eventually I was like fuck this, I'm gonna try my best to bust this clog loose.

So, I tried snorting in as hard as I could, like 5 or 6 times or so. And yes that was extremely painful! On the last snort, a wad of extra thick green snot mixed with bits of semi-solid blood clots about the size of a 1 inch sphere busted loose, and my headache instantly disappeared. 👍

Within about 2 or 3 days I was basically back to normal, and thankfully I've never had such a bad sinus infection again.

Good luck OP, hopefully you're not dealing with a severe sinus infection like I did. Hopefully another commenter's suggestion helps, and hope you get better soon.

I switched up my meds as I’ve found my regular allergy meds are simply not working any more.

I’ve been using Claritin as needed before bed the last few weeks and also Astapro (probably butchered that spelling) as needed off and on during the spring season. The latter is a nasal spray and it actually does a pretty good job.

Last weekend I came down with either a cold or sinus infection so I broke down and got some behind the counter 12 hour Sudafed. Those have immediately helped me but I’m limited to taking them during the daytime and only before 12pm because they seem to really keep me wired unfortunately.

I think someone else mentioned an option of pain relief - I usually use Motrin or a generic. That way it hits with a (not too high) dosage of Tylenol and Ibuprofen that works well to tamper down the sinuses.

If you are in the US, try Allermi. It’s essentially a very diluted form of oxymetazoline (afrin). It turns out that in small doses over longer periods, you can get consistent congestion relief without the risk rebound. It’s the only thing that has ever worked for me.