Violent, uncontrollable sneezing

[RecordBreaker]

I have had allergies and asthma all my life.  When I have a sneezing/hay fever reaction, it's accompanied by the usual itching of palate and eyes, and my medications take care of it.  But once or twice a month, I sneeze uncontrollably, hundreds of times, all day long, and nothing, not Allegra-D, not Claritin, not Benadryl, will stop it.  And the weird thing is, this sneezing is NOT accompanied by the usual itching.  When I have a "sneezing day," I am nonfunctional.  All events are canceled. It is absolutely exhausting.  I sometimes  wonder if it has anything to do with weather or barometric changes; it seems like it rains or there's a temp. change the following day, and my symptoms are COMPLETELY gone.  Any guesses or similarities out there?

[DedraS]

I too have been dealing with these symptoms for the past 3 years.  I have taken an allergy test with the results coming back as allergies to dust mites and all types of tree pollen.  So I got put on allergy shots.  They dramatically reduced my sneezing fits but I moved to another state and have been off them for over a year and the attacks are back in full force.  I am having a fit today since I woke up sneezing at 2am....its now 1pm and its still going.  I could handle a normal stuffy day but not when I sneeze 18 times in a row multiple times throughout the day.  AWFUL.

Here's the ONLY thing that helps (beside allergy shots):
Take anything that is frozen or really cold and apply it to your nose on all sides and freeze the nasal passages.  A can of soda from the fridge works best in my opinion (stays cold the longest).  But a frozen washcloth or a bag of ice should do the trick.  

You may get some weird stares (or more so then usual) but this helps reduce the inflammation and stops the sneezing.  On really bad days I might have to do this a couple times.  

[Carolynrn]

Great idea! I'll try that!!!

[Sneezingpanda]

I have had this problem for 8 years, sneezing uncontrollably one day and fine the next but I have found some things that seem to help me.
I take a tablespoon of chia seeds (omega3) every morning it takes a week or so to build up immunity but seems to help reduce the attacks. When I skip the seeds for a couple or more days I seem to have an attack. Could be a placebo but works for me. Having an attack today and could not work it out then realized I had been away camping and not been taking the seeds.
Reducing sulphite preservatives found in a lot of processed foods and wines. Keep away from 220
Quality rest when an attack comes on.  
This has not cured me but my family have stopped yelling at me to go buy something for it.
Hope this may help somebody.

[margypops]

I also get big sneezing attacks ..and find its like a sinusitis, I think mine is caused by environmental allergies, they spray us a lot here in the desert CA ...I now have a rash on my hands ..

[ankuradhey]

Hello everyone. After reading this thread i am relieved that this problem is not scarce. Well, i have been affected with this allergy for last 2 years only. The reason what i found out after deep thinking and analyzing the conditions i found myself affected is weakness, weather, no proper sleep. Some of you might be agree with me. During these two years i have found that whenever i was doing regular exercise then i was not having a problem at all. But when i started working late night and not sleeping for more than 6 hours have made me affected. Also i feel drowsy sometimes.

[Kae1962]

I too suffer this ailment in the UK. I've tried various nasal sprays to no effect, but recently I have switched to a drug called Loratadine. It's taken orally once a day and seems to work for me. However I did take a break from it just to see what would happen and today I am suffering. As I post this my symptoms have subsided but I know tomorrow I'll be fine. So I'm back on the tablets again!
I'm so glad I found this site and will update if I get any further news.

Bye for now from Southampton.

[garthfan0523]

Wow.  Never thought I would find an actual community of people suffering from the same types of violent sneezing fits that I suffer from.  This is great!  :)

I am a 38-year-old male living in New England.  I've been suffering with this affliction since my very early 20s.  It presents as extreme nasal sensitivity and usually only in my right nostril.  The sensitivity is so bad that I can actually trigger a sneezing fit by simply tugging on a piece of hair on my head.  Oh, the worst is in the shower when I am shaving.  Just the tug of even the sharpest razor on my mustache stubble invariably triggers a fit (which is why I shave in the shower now, by the way.  Less mess.).  Mornings are the worst as I tend to wake up with a mildly runny nostril that triggers a fit around 4:00-5:00am.

Anyways, I did want to share with all of you one strange but effective trick that I use to settle my sneezing down:  Soda.  Yup....Soda.  For some strange reason that my non-doctoral education cannot explain, the carbonation of the soda tickles the back of my throat in such a way that my sneezes calm down almost immediately.  Don't know why and really don't care - I just know that it works.

So, thank you all for the information that I've gleaned here tonight and I hope my soda trick might be of use to some of you fellow violent sneezers.  :)