Peri menopausal rage or medical issue for my son?

[IRememberWhenThisWasAllFieldsAndCakePunching]

My son is 10 and he is insistent he cannot breathe through his nose. Listening to him chewing with his mouth open is driving me UP THE WALL, but he insists he cannot eat any other way, as he can’t breathe. It’s either noisily masticating his food, which makes me want to rip my own face off, or he holds his breath and chews and then exhales really loudly. It’s the same when he drinks, holds his breath and then big gasps in between little rabbit sips.

he is doing it now. We have one sofa, we are sat on it watching a film and he is pressed right up against me, butchering marshmallows. I can hear both his chewing and his breathing, either whistling through his nose or little breathy mouth gasps.

help me. I’m going to run away and join the circus. His father has appalling eating habits too - chews with his mouth open and for the love of all that’s holy, I have to leave the room when he eats sweets. He’s on the other side of my son, lip smacking and crunching minstrels so loudly I’ve had to turn the film up.

I swear I don’t notice this stuff until this year. Please help me. Do I need to take my child to the doctor? Am I peri menopausal? Why does it make me so angry?

DP is now slurping his tea and DS is really dragging out eating marshmallows and I am about five seconds away from having to leave the room.

To be fair my son couldn’t breathe through his nose and has twice needed surgery on the cartilage in his septum (the bit between the nostrils). So he’s likely to need a referral to ENT to check.

Thank you, now I feel like a terrible mother <shame>

to be fair, I did start the post with a genuine desire to ask for serious answers, but it descended into a rant!

My son has a milk protein allergy. One of the symptoms was a blocked nose.

I agree, get it checked out.

I couldn’t breathe out of my nose until last year (I’m 47) when I had surgery to fix a deviated septum. It’s worth getting him checked.

My youngest has cmpa seriously @Silverbirchleaf oldest always is a heavy mouth breathing, snottery thing, but has always seemed ok when consuming dairy, younger has rash hives wheeze vomiting etc, so never thought maybe linked for older?

No need to feel terrible. It’s a genuine intolerance of others eating and drinking noises, I don’t think I had it until I hit menopause, now so many things irritate me, including people slurping and talking when eating - grrrr!

I was such a placid person prior to about a year/18 months ago.

I finally got my deviated septum done at 48
maybe it’s a trip to ENT

Mouth breathing is really bad for overall health as well as being annoying. You should get him checked out as it could be something that needs surgery or it could be allergy related.

We never realised either. Ds also used to make a an annoying gutteral sound in his throat. It was only later when he had pizza and the sound returned that we realised it was linked.

Dh got tested later and has the same allergy. He now realises that the sluggish feeling he sometimes gets is due to cows milk. He now drinks goat milk routinely at home.

They’re both fine if the milk is in cakes, bread etc.

My son had a severe dust mite allergy and was a chronic mouth breather. It also used to enrage me too; when he ate!!

It seems as though I should take him to the doctors! Interestingly, he doesn’t tolerate an overload of dairy well at all.