Visited the ENT today. He scoped me (but didn't order a CT scan; I do
have a recent X-Ray that's negative) and decided my symptoms didn't
indicate a sinus infection - noticed some mucus (I've been getting a
little mucus and soreness in the cheeks/forehead for a bit while all
the worse stuff was going on). Asked for a followup in two months
(call if things get worse).

So what the hell have I got?

My symptoms are a feeling of swollen tissue everywhere across the
forehead, top and back of the head, and behind my ears. There's a sort
of tension and irritation, and a rumbling sound in my ears. Twice in
the last couple weeks, this has blown up into really alarming symptoms
- once a grotesque swelling feeling like a hollow cone projecting down
in to the neck, and once a weird feeling like a hair net all over the
back and top of my head, filled with swollen stuff like a balloon.
Both times, it started 'acting up' to get there, characterized by a
feeling like a wind in my head and lots of stuff moving around,
eventually filling in everything. This was preceded by weird feelings
of cables of various types - some very tight like piano wires, some
spongy, some more like ribbons with rough edges - across the back of
my head. They move, but seem very specifically located (unlike the
vague pressure and fuzziness in the top/back of the head, increasing
to uncomfortable levels when lieing down, which were the main symptoms
of my chronic sinusitis) - I can feel them getting tangled in one
another as they cross when they do so. Both 'crises' were preceded by
the feeling of increasing numbers of these cables, and eventually
everything sort of pulled together until I felt no empty space at all
and started the swelling  - I could feel the cables getting all
tangled up in swollen tissue as it happened, and hear the creaking as
it pushed into various areas.

I don't have a fever, anyhow.

Can a stress reaction give symptoms like this? That was suggested by a
clinic doctor I asked for advice, and I have been stressed lately. It
would certainly be a more welcome diagnosis, if true, than a sphenoid
infection.

The other weird thing is that this seemed to all begin when I started
taking papaya tablets. That's when I started feeling weird symptoms
that I took for improvement (like tissue unsticking and sticking, in a
track that eventually led from above my nose up, over the top and then
across the back of the head). That was in August - stress reactions
don't take place over 5 months, do they?

Any ideas?

Cipro-ADR-seeming symptoms (mostly burning/achiness in hands, feet,
arms and legs, much worse in the night; dryness in mouth/nose/eyes;
feet get numb when elevated or wearing shoes, random brief
joint/muscle pains everywhere) have lowered in intensity but still
persist, and the 16th was my last dose. But this sinus/swelling
problem happened before (and was what I was prescribed cipro for).