LAX Leader

Nearly 37 million Americans suffer from at least one episode of acute nasal inflammation each year, according to the American Sinus Institute.

Singer Ariana Grande can count herself among the 37 million.

In 2016, Grande had to cancel her concert at the Rock in Rio music festival in Portugal due to a sinus infection, Yahoo! News reported.

"I'm deeply saddened to tell my babes in Portugal that I have to cancel my performance at Rock in Rio. I've literally been crying over this for  an hour," she told her fans on Instagram in 2016. "I have a throat and sinus infection, and my doctors have advised me not to sing for a few days. I promise to make it up to you and give you the best show I'm capable of when I return. Again, I'm  so sorry to the babes who were coming to see me. I love you with all my heart."

In 2019, she cancelled a concert in Lexington, Kentucky, again due to a sinus infection, the Huffington Post reported.

“Hi, my loves," Grande wrote on Instagram in 2019. "So I’m still very sick. I’ve been sick since the last London show. I don’t know how it’s possible, but my throat and head are still in so much pain. I sound okay, I’m just in a lot of pain, and it’s difficult to breathe during the show. I am seeing my doctor and trying my (very) best to get better for tomorrow’s show. The last thing I would ever want to do is cancel a show  at this point with so few left.”

Dental and facial pain are very common with sinus problems, according to Dr. Matt Hershcovitch a physician at SoCal Breathe Free Sinus & Allergy Centers in Burbank.

"The reason why this occurs has to do with the nerve pathway that goes to the upper part of upper teeth," he told LAX Leader. "When you have inflammation, infection, bacterial overgrowth in that sinus cavity that leads to inflammation of the nerve itself, which leads to pain all along the nerve pathway, which is why you feel pain in your teeth."

Chronic sinusitis can be difficult to treat, Hershcovitch said.

"It is is often overtreated and unsuccessfully treated with multiple rounds of antibiotics," Hershcovitch said. "This leads to bacterial resistance, which makes future infections harder to treat and very unsuccessful and putting the patients at risk for serious complications. The best thing to do is actually to restore normal sinus function. What we can do is actually dilate and enlarge the passageways open to the sinuses. That's what we aim to achieve with our patients."

If you're interested in evaluating your sinus or allergy symptoms, take this Sinus Self-Assessment Quiz.