Background: Have had an ongoing PND/ sinus issue for 5 or 6 years. I have been told its not allergic but is non specific rhinitis.
Every year in the spring, the thick mucus in my sinuses starts dripping down my throat and is generally a pain. However like clockwork as we get into late spring, I develop a summer cold. And it knocks me around and takes between 4 - 6 weeks to get on top of.
Its getting serious because for the last 3 years when the cold comes, the back of my nose and sinuses fill up but none of it will come out of my nose. It flows by the boat load straight down my throat. Cue 2 days of sitting in a chair going without sleep and desperately trying to breathe. Each year its got more serious. First year I got a routine inhaler and thought that would do it but now I am at the stage where the mucus is so thick and immovable that I couldn't get the inhaler past the mucus into my lungs. So I'm gasping and wheezing and coughing and choking and my heart is pounding so hard I am awaiting the heart attack! And this goes on for a couple of days and its very scarey. But the story doesn't ever end there, the next stage is a reduced but still significant amount of mucus everywhere, mainly from the nose but I suspect some of it is in the bronchioles because when I cough and actually manage to get stuff up it feels like it is coming from 'grooves' within the very upper part of my chest on one side. Also the stuff that comes up is a dirty grey brown and has an unpleasant smell.
Meanwhile my nose seems to have settled enough for me to blow out of but its still streaming down both the front and the back of my nose on and off throughout the day. The mucus is mainly white but also a bit yellow tinged.
I am still worn out from all the coughing and continue to have disturbed sleep because of all the mucous being produced. If this follows true to form, I am at Day 9 now and this will start to die down around Day 14 but the nasal mucus and thickness and severe PND will be present for up to six weeks.
So does anyone know what is going on with this?
Another thing that may provide a clue is after several years of nasal rinsing (the only thing that works for my aggravated sinuses and PND). I got lazy and stopped. After a break of 4 months, I started to get noticeably bad so tried to return to it. But no luck, tepid water, saline whatever, the pain is really intense and no matter how many times I have tried, I have not been able to nasal rinse without sharp stinging pain. I assumed it was due to inflammation but one thing that is interesting is that I tried it the other day in desperation when I was choking all the time and it worked perfectly, no pain at all. I tried again today and we are back to intense stinging.
If you can make sense out of any of this, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. It's getting beyond me just hoping for the best.
I'm pretty large and am in my late 50's and dont know if this is part of the problem. Also its almost certain I have sleep apnoea.
Thanks
Sparky