Amity Adams works at a local dentist's office helping patients with insurance, billing, scheduling, and follow-up appointments.

Through it all she suffers through facial pressure, the inability to breath through her nose, headaches and nasal discharge.
For as long as she can remember Amity has had sinusitis.

“Getting sick. I really had a hard time clearing up any type of cold, any type of nasal problems. I'm constantly encountering infections. Anytime I get a head cold stays,” says Amity.

Amity is one of millions of Americans who has chronic sinusitis--a condition where the sinuses don't drain properly.

It can be diagnosed with the help of a CT Scan.

“This is a normal, clear sinus,” says Dr. Stacey Hudson as he shows us one CT Scan.

Dr. Hudson says the scans can tell him about the patient.

“This is the sinus that is infected in this case. This is the normal sinus, the black is air, white is bone, gray is soft tissue,” he says as he points each side of the scan.

In a relatively new procedure, Dr. Hudson says he can clear the sinuses in a way that's less invasive and has nearly no down time.

Called Balloon-Sinuplasty, it's much like angioplasty, in which heart arteries are cleared.

“People are familiar with the balloon inside the artery of the heart to open blood flow, we are essentially doing the same thing. We are putting a balloon in the sinus,” says Dr. Hudson.

The procedure takes about thirty minutes.

Amity is under local anesthetic as a flexible tube with a camera allows Dr. Hudson to see inside her nose.

Once inside the cavity he inflates the balloon in key areas to create a pathway for drainage.

All four sinuses are done in one procedure so the patient does not have to come back.

Most patients can get back to normal activity after leaving the doctor's office.

Amity will be back in one week for a follow-up, then provided there are no complications, she will be able to live her life free of stuffy sinuses.