No Stupid Questions

I've had a stuffy nose for almost 50 years. Food makes me stuffy, dust and pollen make me runny.

If I behave food wise and it's not fall or winter I can be somewhat normal.

Visiting Vegas had me breathing clear if I didn't make bad food choices.

Medicine is barely effective. Never tried the shots because they're not effective with food

A doc described allergies and migraines the same way to me - you have a cup and different triggers add a bit to your cup. That cup is your tolerance and you get symptoms when it overflows. It can be really hard to detect your triggers because it's not just mountain cedar or soy or whatever - is 2% this and 3% that until it's full. You can try a journal of everywhere you go, everything you eat, when/where you're outside, etc.; but it's easier to just take the meds. If you think the meds aren't working, go off them for a few days and see how terrible you feel. On day 1 i get sniffly. By day 3 I itch so bad i can't sleep.

I get really bad brain fog. It's like I wake up and feel my IQ has halved. Simple problems seem gigantic, everything is a hassle. On top of that - general fatigue, like walking up the stairs or running a bit gets me all breathless. Even though I should be familiar with it by now, I always keep thinking: "is it COVID?"

Then one day it rains and the pollen subsides and suddenly I can run and think and feel like myself again.

As far as I know, I have 2 main allergies: pollen and metals (some metals, not sure which exactly).

Pollen

• It feels like my nose is a leaky faucet. It will run and run and I'll have sneezing fits for hours. If I blow my nose, it makes the inside feel super-dry and itchy, which just kicks off more running and sneezing. So it basically feels pointless to blow my nose at all, and I usually settle for sniffling instead. But if I do that too much, I start getting mini-sinus headaches.
• Flare-ups. Sometimes I'll see the plants that trigger it and I'll start sneezing within 10-20 minutes. Other times I'll go outside and it'll start out of nowhere. It'll last for hours.
• Meds do not seem to help at all. Maybe they shorten what would be a 6-hour episode into a 3-hour episode but who tf knows. I have yet to find anything that kicks in faster than a couple hours after use.

Metals

• I break out in a highly localized rash. It's red, bumpy, and itches like mosquito bites.
• Flare-ups after prolonged contact (several hours) with a metal. It'll last anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days.
• No meds. It's pretty easy to ignore when it flares up, and it's easy enough to avoid exposure.

So I've had allergies all my life. Waking up stuffy or sniffling is super common, I don't even keep track of it. When it's bad, if I tilt my head back, I'm literally drinking mucus lol (gross). I joke about being allergic to the outdoors, spring time's bad, and there's particularly something about the desert that makes my allergies act up. Some of the shrubs out there, sagebrush maybe. And I can get it basically everywhere, even while traveling to other countries, so it seems like I'm allergic to multiple things. My allergy symptoms are pretty much sneezing and sniffling, nothing to do with the throat.

I've taken OTC antihistamine meds before. They don't completely dry me out but it helps a little. They're not a magical cure, so I actually don't bother most of the time unless it's bad and I have something important going on.

I don't think you're being a big baby, because it sounds like you just developed this issue? I just deal with it because it's normal, it's been going on my whole life, kinda like wearing glasses lol.

I have allergies and they suck.

Most of the year, a daily dose of OTC Claritin takes care of it for me. But sometimes in the spring or fall, the pollen counts get too high and the Claritin isn't enough. Doesn't help that I'm allergic to multiple types of pollen. What helps me a lot is to start taking OTC Flonase. It makes a huge difference. The thing with allergies is, the medications work better if you get out in front of the allergic reactions. You can catch up after they start, but it takes longer.

One tip that helps some folks is to take a shower before you go to bed. This can reduce allergens building up on your pillowcase. Obviously, launder your linens regularly.

Also, vacuum the house (wearing a mask) and replace your HVAC filters frequently. Consider getting better filters that are good for allergies (but note they are expensive).

Don't forget the cabin filter in your car.

Finally, the absolute best allergy therapy that I personally know of is immunotherapy AKA allergy injections. This regimen is a major PITA, but it works really well for some folks. It basically trains your immune system to stop freaking out and tolerate the allergens. I did it as a kid and it completely eliminated my allergies until adulthood when I developed new ones. I have considered doing it again, but I'm making do with the OTC regimen for now.

I hope this was at least a little helpful. You have my sympathy. Allergies are no joke, they can be miserable.

Im lucky in that what allergies I have dont stick around.

When spring hits and theres a ton of pollen in the air I feel like I have a cold for about a month. Runny sneezy nose. And a scratchy throat.

When I'm not around dogs or cats for a while my eyes get irritated and I get itchy. Once Im around them for a couple days it goes away.

I will also get random skin irritation (red and itchy) when eating random junk food I havent had in a while.

Most of the time its candy that triggers it as I dont eat it alot, but it will happen with popcorn too.

My regular seasonal allergies just make me feel like I have a cold without the fever. Itchy eyes, runny nose, sore throat, aching muscles and joints with a general feeling of malaise.

But I've also had an allergic reaction to amoxicillin I was taking for strep a couple years ago and it started off just making me itch all over. Then I got a rash. Then I got hives. Then the next day when I walked into the bathroom first thing in the morning, I couldn't even recognize my own face because it was so red and swollen; and that's when I decided to go to a doctor.

I mean I've got a list of difficult to find substances I'm allergic to. Some give me the shits, some give me anaphylaxis and my airway starts to close up, some give me a raah, one just makes my eyeballs itch like crazy.

Edit: read closer. I found a lot of luck with a functional medicine MD with getting to the bottom of a somewhat intransigent diagnosis. Don't know if it's the field or the specific doc, but maybe it's worth a look?

Pretty much have allergies all year round now so I’m on basic Claritin daily. During spring or fall I have to ramp up to Claritin, allergra, Zyrtec and Asterpro nasal spray. The meds barely make a dent but it’s better than nothing. So yeah it’s misery, stuffy nose and sneezing bouts. I’m a true mouth breather lol

I would like to try the shots but just haven’t gotten around to it.

Welcome to the club!

I had allergies for years. It was like a constant cold or worse - runny nose, itchy eyes, itchy throat, brain fog, fatigue, a little difficulty breathing (from being bunged up all the time), occasional tinnitus, etc. It was often a living hell. Often I couldn't exercise, because the extra breathing from exertion would make symptoms worse again. Symptoms would seem to go in cycles to an extent, but they never went away completely.

I went back and forth to doctors who were all useless. In the end, I tried cutting out various things in my diet. I was already vegan, which, by cutting out dairy, had reduced the symptoms for years, but I was still suffering from constant colds, just not as bunged up or run down as previously. I ended up finding that wheat was making everything worse. It took 5 weeks of not having any wheat at all (and before that. various other things) to find this out. Since then, I cut out all wheat, and hardly ever get cold like symptoms (or colds) any more, and never get hayfever any more. (The only time symptoms return is when I screw up and have wheat or spelt accidentally or thoughtlessly).

I found I'm also allergic to touching cardboard - I can't handle it without gloves or I'll get eczema, basically Having cardboard in the room where I sleep is a bad idea, and can set off itchy eyes and a slight sniffle. I'm also affected by damp and mold in a house, but less so since cutting out wheat.

I'm not saying everything is a wheat allergy, but it's definitely worth trying to isolate things. I found you need to completely cut something out of your diet for 5 to 6 weeks to notice if it's affecting you. Start with more common things or things you know to be bad.

Also, one year I suddenly starting getting allergic reactions to beer - pretty much any kind of beer brought on itchy, weeping eyes, sore throat, sneezing, etc. with symptoms lasting for hours. I talked to another guy who had the same thing happen in the same year, and we thought it might be to do with a change in yeast or sulphites or something that affected all brewers. I cut out beer, and years later cut out all alcohol.

I've found eating mostly organic food, cutting out cane sugar (and fructose syrup and similar), wheat, and alcohol has removed nearly everything that was making me ill for so long. It took a long time to find what worked for me, and doctors were absolutely no help at all. Pills and drugs only mask symptoms and don't deal with the root cause, and can often stop working after a while, depending on what's affecting you and how (this is what I'd found in the past, anyway). Diet and environment changes seem to have better long term results by far.

Food is grown as a commodity to make investors rich - a lot of it is literally poisonous; but it is possible in nearly every country to filter out the worst crap and get to healthier options. But look for changes in your environment, too - new paint in the house, a damp patch previously unnoticed, changed ingredients in laundry liquid/powder, new clothes, cat litter, etc. Something could be triggering all of this, and it can take some detective work to isolate it.

(And to answer expected questions about being a vegan who doesn't eat wheat or sugar or drink alcohol: I eat well, I eat plenty, and I have never felt healthier or better in ny life. But I do eat a wide range of fruit, veg, grains, beans, seeds, nuts, etc. and I mostly make my own food). And I'm not selling anyone veganism or a gluten free diet or anything else, just saying what worked for me when nothing else did.

Good luck, and I hope you find relief soon!

I only have two that I know of:

Siamese cats make my eyes painfully itchy

Rats make me breathe like I have emphysema.

For me its like a constant cold symptom. Runny or stuffy nose, sneeze attacks, swelling and redness, stuff everyone gets when they get sick.

2 specific pills per day keeps it under control most of the time. Some days nothing can save me. I had to try so many different medicines to finally find what works for me. My stuff doesn’t work for my sister. You’ll just have to try stuff until something works, like an episode of House M.D.

Are you being a big baby? I dunno man, everybody has their struggles. I’ve had my whole life to become numb to this problem. Maybe you’re just not used to it?

I suddenly picked up "allergies*" in my late 30s - couldn't work out what they were, other than antihistamines (cetirizine or loratidine) made them "not as bad", and I also needed to avoid certain things in particular (breathing in dust, aerosols, perfumes, other chemical fumes, car fumes, cigarette fumes, wood dust and drinking alcohol).

Turned out to be Nasal Polyps. I was due for surgery to remove them in 2020, but then Covid happened and I've been on a waiting list since. Surgery may completely remove the problem, or at least lessen it - but they could grow back within five years.

Basically every day is like I've got cold or sometimes flu. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in phlegm. If I take antihistamines, it's pretty mild or controllable, as long as I can reasonably avoid those triggers. Sometimes I have to drink lemsip in the morning (powdered hot drink of paracetamol, lemon flavour & decongestant). It's there every day, permanently, but how severe it is varies between "slightly inconvenient" and "too unwell to work".

Antihistamines are essential for me to function at all, and make a huge difference - though I feel they've become less effective in the last year or so. Thankfully they're very cheap over the counter (~£1.30 for 30 days' worth). I also use a saltwater nasal spray sometimes, and I sometimes eat a lot of menthol sweets. I have to be careful with decongestants to avoid "rebound congestion" where your nose adjusts to life with decongestants, then becomes twice as blocked up if you stop.

If I drink alcohol or breathe perfume etc, my sinuses block up within half an hour, I can get an asthmatic response, and I get crippling arthritic pain in my hands and joints. Sometimes perfume and other sprays can cause severe, possibly dangerous breathing problems. I have an asthma inhaler for these emergencies, and always have to carry it with me, in case someone sprays perfume in an enclosed space (which might cause me to die).

If I keep reasonable control over these things, I can live pretty "normally". If I actually get a cold, it's like I've got a "double cold", and it can make me too ill to go to work.

When it's bad, it's a pretty miserable existence to be honest, but in the larger scale of things it's not a serious or life-threatening illness, so you feel guilty for complaining.

When it's not so bad, I can normally ignore it for most of the day - and I have a pretty active job and am otherwise fairly healthy. It's worst in the morning/night when I'm horizontal.

Your case outlined in the original post sounds particularly upsetting and you have my sympathies. You're not being a baby.

*technically it's an intolerance or hypersensitivity, and not truly an allergy, though it behaves in much the same way, and symptoms can be controlled in much the same way.

I realized that I had allergies during the height of the pandemic... so the short answer is it gave me way too much unnecessary stress because I was constantly worried whether I got COVID-19.

• Depends... I felt most times it was just "did I finally catch covid or is this just allergy?", there was once or twice when it got really bad though.
• There was once when I had such a bad allergy that my eyes both flared up and I could barely see... It was bad enough that I reached out to the allergy department of my provider as soon as I was functional & got me into immunotherapy.
• Not meds, but I did 3+ years of immunotherapy: 1+ year of getting allergen injections every week (thankfully still had a car back then), and then once per month of maintenance after I reached the highest dose. Had to stop because of relocation/insurance nonsense... but I think the treatment worked.
• No you're not being a big baby, please take your health seriously and stay safe & healthy.

This may not be helpful, but since you asked for experiences:

I had allergies as a kid, so never could breathe through my nose easily, even as an adult when the allergies eased. Yoga unexpectedly fixed it. The breathing exercises in particular, at first nothing opened but over time my nasal passages opened, or healed, or whatever had to happen and I now breathe easily and comfortably through my nose.

So if the drugs aren't working and it's a nasal thing, no itchy eyes, etc. it's worth trying yoga, and when gunky maybe the neti pot (boiled and cooled water, a little salt). I really had no idea yoga would have that effect so pretty sure it's not some placebo thing.

If you're allergic to everything, it may interest you to look into mast cell activation or histamine intolerance. There's also a theory in alternative medicine circles (and an entire Ray Peat forum which is simultaneously informative and nonsensical) about your fat-soluble vitamins which are involved with autoimmune/allergy issues and can be out of whack. And so their answer is to take larger amounts of fat soluble vitamins. This can be dangerous if done with animal derived sources of vitamin A, like your skin can start sloughing off and you get wicked nausea and diarrhea and headaches. Theoretically, these symptoms in the Ray Peat world mean you need more vitamins D, E, and K to balance the vitamin A toxicity effects. An imbalance of fat soluble vitamins (too much or too little of any of them) can contribute theoretically to certain types of diseases/conditions.

I have an issue with absorbing fats/food and my allergies are worse when I'm having flare ups, so I do see some merit in this theory. I have found that supplementing fat soluble vitamins, (+omega 3 and 9, and various other B vitamins and vitamin C, and zinc and iron and copper and selenium), has helped my allergies out a ton. I really really recommend that if you have systemic allergies like this, to see if supplements/vitamins help.

Mine are similar to yours, but only two relatively short periods per year. It hits me mid-spring, and end of summer.

As for your allergy testing, it's likely you're not really allergic to all of the allergens you were tested for. In many cases for those tests, if a few of the allergens trigger a reaction, then all or most of the injection sites will react rather than just the ones you're allergic to. It helps when you can tell in the moment which one started it, since reactions happen quite quickly.