Hi everyone
For pretty much all my life as far as I can remember, I have had some degree of stuffiness in my nose and postnasal drip at some point or another. I remember as a child I would occasionally wake up in the middle of the night to throw up because of the mucus that had built up in the back of my throat. I also had some problems waking up with a sore throat, again caused by blocked sinuses at night. What it means for me nowadays (at age 29) is just that I sometimes end up snoring, particularly once it gets past about 4am.
I have tried prescription antihistamines and various prescription nasal sprays, most of which have some effect in the short term but never a lasting one. I have also been trying a daily sinus rinse which does seem to be helping... again, only on and off though.
My GP referred me to an ENT who I saw about 5 months ago and seemed more concerned about pushing to have my tonsils removed (for the snoring) than to get to the bottom of the causes of my sometimes blocked or congested sinuses. I had a follow-up visit last week and had a temporary registrar (the best thing that could have happened, as luck would have it). She looked up my nose and said that it did look quite red and inflamed and 'allergic'. She then talked about the apparent benefits to using sinus rinses daily, and also how she had been at a conference not so long ago where they showed examples of people whose sinus troubles had been greatly improved by a change in their diet (referring specifically to the removal of dairy products). I have had a history of not agreeing with dairy in my diet, and even today too much milk can cause some quite bad stomach pain. Some have said to me that it sounds like lactose intolerance in a mild form.
Anyway, to get to the part that brings me here today, she sent me off for some allergy tests. I had them today and they tested 9 different samples plus the control. The only one that showed any reaction was the control. I was really hoping the cow's milk was going to show something but nothing did. I don't have a breakdown of what she tested, so I'll need to check the results after they are sent to my GP.
I really have two concerns. First, my condition is not 'chronic' in the sense that I get completely stuffed up and sneeze all the time. I don't even need to blow my nose in most cases. It just gets very congested - too much so to be able to breathe through clearly, and I get postnasal drip at times. So does this mean that the signs might have been too subtle for what she was looking for? A few of the samples did make me itch slightly but apparently none were worthy of recording.
Secondly, if not one of those 9, then what? How can I find out? I feel like I'm no closer to establishing what is causing this and has done all my life. I have noticed I do have periods where I can breathe fine through my nose, but to somehow trace back the cause of it or what changed before i started to get stuffy would require a personal assistant to be with me the whole time to record my movements etc.
I'm sure this is nothing most allergy sufferers go through trying to establish the cause. I just wondered if anyone has any advice on how I can move forward in figuring this out.
Thanks
Richard