What's a sinus?

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Why: I am stopped up about the face and head, so much that I was told I snored last night. How mortifying. I am pretty sure I have some sort of infection, possibly in my sinuses, but the truth is that I have no idea what a sinus is or why I have it, because all it ever seems to do is get infected.

Answer: An airpocket in your face bones! WHAT!

First, we have 4 pairs of sinus cavities (well, in the face - there are paranasal sinuses, but there are also sinuses [literally Latin for "pocket"] in other organs, like your brain and butt).

• Ethmoid (between the eyes) sinuses - Located behind the bridge of the nose and at the "root" of the nose between the eyes. We are all born with ethmoid sinuses, and they grow as we grow.
• Frontal (forehead) sinuses - Located above the eyes in the region of the forehead and only develop around 7 years of age.
• Maxillary (cheekbones) sinuses - Found on either side of the nostrils in the cheek bones. They are present at birth and grow as we grow.
• Sphenoid (behind the eyes) sinuses - Deeper in the skull behind the ethmoid sinuses and the eyes. We only develop sphenoid sinus cavities during adolescence.

And they serve a few purposes:

• They remove unwanted air particles from the air you breathe!
• They moisten the air!
• They give resonance to your voice!
• They lighten the weight of the skull!
  

That last one is why your head feels heavy and you feel sleepy during a sinus attack.

Source: SinusWars, eMedicineHealth

The More You Know: When you get a sinus infection, all sorts of gross things happen. Acute sinusitis (the kind that lasts about a week) is caused by a viral respiratory infection. The infection damages the lining of the sinus, causing it to become inflamed. The lining thickens, obstructing the nasal passage that connects to the sinus. The disrupts the process by which bacteria is normally removed from the sinus, and like a jerk, the bacteria just starts to multiply and invade the lining. All sorts of nasty things get trapped in the sinus cavity and you can't breathe and you snore.

Here is a list of symptoms of different kinds of sinusitis. I think I'm getting the acute maxillary, Pop.