When a “Sinus Infection” Is Actually a Heart Attack
When 42-year-old Mark Benson woke up on a damp Tuesday morning with a heavy ache behind his eyes and a dull, throbbing pressure across his cheekbones, he reached for what any busy parent and software manager would: a box of decongestants and a large travel mug of coffee. For three days, the symptoms had lingered. A persistent, low-grade sense of fatigue. He attributed the strange tightness in his jaw and upper chest to severe post-nasal drip and stress. He was convinced he had a classic case of acute sinus infection. By Thursday afternoon, with the pressure in his face refusing to yield and his workday grinding to a halt, Mark pulled into a local urgent care clinic. A mild shortness of breath whenever he walked up the stairs to his office made sense to him because, after all, if your nasal passages are blocked, breathing is bound to feel like work. He expected a 15-minute wait, a quick flash of an otoscope inside his ears and nose, a prescription for amoxicillin, and a prompt return to...