Help, stuffy nose not going away

Alex had a runny/stuffy nose all winter. She ended up with a sinus infection three times, but she never had a fever. So, it’s definitely possible to be bacterial without a fever.

Every time she’s been diagnosed we’ve gone in because I was worried about an ear infection. Typically, she’d had a runny/stuffy nose for two or more weeks, it often had started to be a yellow or greenish discharge instead of clear, and she usually had started having trouble sleeping.

That’s what Ellie gets often, a sinus infection. It usually starts as a cold but lingers on and on and she ends with a sinus infection. Don’t panic. Basically it just means that the bacteria that initially invaded the nose has moved upward into the sinuses. An antibiotic (usually Zithromax) always clears it up for Ellie.

Some docs will tell you that babies don’t have sinuses and therefore cannot get sinus infections but one doctor explained to me that they can get Upper Respiratory Infections which can be bacterial and need antibiotics to clear up.

As for symptoms for Ellie it’s usually starts as a cold with a clear runny, stuffy nose and sometimes a fever. As time goes on the mucous just gets thicker and thicker and sometimes turns yellow or green (not always, though). The thickness of the (excuse me) snot is what tips me off. Often she has bad breath, and she usually seems to not feel very well. Of course, she can’t sleep well and she doesn’t have much of an appetite.

I just read an article about runny noses and infants. It said if the discharge is clear and colorless, it could be allergies. As babies get older they develop more enviromental allergies. Could this be the case?