Post Nasal Drip

Background:
I'm a 30yr old Indian born male living in London from past 6yrs.
I’m a 69kg fit person and I workout a lot (probably 5-6 times a week) with no medical conditions. (Although I’ve had a sinus operation about 15 years ago, not sure if that is relevant).

History:
Since last 1.5 years (from May/June-2010) I have had hacking cough and skin urticaria (dermatographism).
Following were some symptoms I had in July/Aug-2010:
- Bad taste early morning.
- Choking and wheezing after having dinner.
- Slight pain in the chest.
- Running made everything worse.
- Cold made things worse too.
- Skin dermatographism (urticaria).
I starting visiting GP’s and NHS doctors in Sept-2010; they asked me to use their favourite drug “paracetamol” which didn’t improve anything. After a while they referred me to a chest specialist who made me try different cough syrups, nasal sprays and also did some chest x-rays, lung function tests, CT-scans of chest etc and said everything was normal. (NOTE: NHS docs did not X-rayed or scanned my skull). Eventually NHS docs in London diagnosed the problem as "sarcoidosis" which I think was a total BS, but anyways… (I can sit here and rant about NHS docs but that is pointless)
In Dec-2010 I went to Delhi (Apollo Hospital, one of the best private places). They also did number of tests but they also did a skull x-ray and said I was suffering from allergic-rhinitis and sinusitis.
They give me good medications and everything was honky dory in 2 weeks (apart from skin urticaria), I returned to London in Jan-2011 and the symptoms started to come back slowly and in a month I was back to square one!
Early this year, I gave up and just accepted that I’ll have to live with the conditions; well time and again I try to Google it and get to the bottom of it; but it seems like I’m swimming in Atlantic (no visible bottom and I keep drowning rather than identifying the cause).

Current State:
Recently, I tried to understand from Mr Google and "chronic coughs due to post nasal drip" is the one that makes the most logical sense of underlying cause of my painful 1.5 years. Over the last 3 months I’ve tried cutting out various food items, stopping the protein shakes, bought a couple of air purifiers, moved to a new house!!!!!, started taking different antihistamines and doing nasal irrigation (doing Neti using Salt and baking soda powder), and started applying vicks vaporub on my chest before sleeping every night (been doing that for almost 2 months).
Some of these things help like Neti and acrivastine antihistamine but not for long; after 2-3hrs I feel the nasal drip at the back of my throat! Vaporub helps me breathe well when I’m sleeping without which I’ll get up in the middle of the night and cough like a mad dog. The True-HEPA air-purifier from Honeywell (£150) was a waste of money.

Something tells me this forum might help me (well I’ll find out soon enough). I still have the following symptoms:
- Feeling of something dripping at the back of my throat ALL THE TIME.
- If I snort it and spit it out, it is yellowish green in colour.
- Early morning my chest feels clogged with this drip.
- Early morning chest pains.
- I cant go for my 5km runs, because it makes nasal dripping worse and makes me cough a lot.

But is this due to allergies? Is this due to something I eat? Does this problem have a name? Or is simply hay-fever and I just need to put up with it?

Is there anyone who can help?

[Paderla Anitha, DNB]

Hello and hope you are doing well.

It appears from your history that you are getting repeated attacks of sinusitis. The other causes for long term cough besides asthma are GERD and post nasal drip from allergies. GERD is gastro esophageal reflux disease where the stomach acids come back into the esophagus and spill into the wind pipe causing cough. Treatment with antacids will help neutralize the acids. Post nasal drips can occur with sinusitis and throat infections. Giving up cigarettes will abolish smoker's cough in 90% of people. To summarize you could be having sinusitis and GERD needs to be ruled out. Also, if lung function tests indicate Asthma, you may need to take inhalers.  

Also, have a culture and sensitivity test done to find out the correct antibiotic that the infecting organism is sensitive to and taking this medication for the required amount of days may help to clear the infection.

You could also try warm salt water gargles and breathing exercises.

Hope this helped and do keep us posted.

[singhmohit]

Hi,

Thanks for a reply.
Apologies, I should have mentioned that I'm a non-smoker and have been one all my life. GPs in London (before they referred me to a so-called “specialist”) did thought it could be GERD, but the antacids meds they gave me, didn’t help at all.
Anyhow, I did read an article on while searching the answers on Google which was blaming gluten allergies!!! It clearly differentiates “gluten sensitivity” against “gluten allergies” and treats them as two different things. Please have a read here: http://*********.********.com/hub/Coughing-Post-Nasal-Drip-Gluten-Intolerance-and-Other-Allergies
After reading this, I’ve given up wheat, gluten and dairy products and living on rice and fruits since last 2 days. I think it will take some time before I find out if this theory holds any water; but it will be interesting to understand your views on this?

Regards,
MSM

[singhmohit]

Also,
I think I must mention that the lung function tests and peak flow meter tests done by doctors in london and Delhi established that I do not have asthma.
Regards,
MSM