That this is fucking up my life??

[snottery]

Some kind of hay fever / allergy / mild asthma.

I realise it's not 'serious' in the grand scheme of things, but it's really affecting my life and my sleep.

Had phlegm / post nasal drip for years and years and that's bad enough, but recently it also includes such delights as

Hours upon hours of streaming / blocked nose / sneezing almost every day
Taking in too much air when blowing that I get heartburn and trapped wind. Can't burp so this is horribly uncomfortable until it comes out other way
Throbbing bridge of nose
Even my teeth hurt at times
Itchy skin
Sometimes wheezing and a bit hard to get a breath.

It's embarrassing as I'm constantly wiping or blowing my nose or making horrible choking noises trying to get phlegm up.

The final straw has been the past 24 hours. I got 4 hours sleep last night because of it, my neighbour was banging down at me cause of the noise of my nose blowing last night, and I cancelled a family outing this morning cause of embarrassment and just generally feeling shitty because of this.

Finally gave in and took an antihistamine which I found in the cupboard. It's helped somewhat. Not completely but enough.

Please, Please tell me that these tablets work long term and that your body doesn't get 'used' to them??

It's making me miserable.

No idea what I'm allergic to, but it happens when I'm indoors for days and the phlegm has happened year round. I'm guessing dust.

If you're going to take cetirizine (Piriteze) you need to take it daily for it to do much good. Just taking it when you get desperate is pointless. For a more immediate fix, Piriton is quicker acting, but also wears off after about 4 hours (and will make you drowsy). Different drugs suit different people. You should really see your GP for something heavier duty if you're suffering this much +/- nasal spray or inhalers for wheeziness, an evaluation by a respiratory nurse and a referral to the allergy clinic. Silly to suffer in silence and potentially risky too.

OH does a lot of boating and fishing when he is on the beach or boat his vanishes too.

Ended up under immunology due to hayfever, mild asthma and itchy skin. Montelulast and Fexofenidine have me virtually symptom free.

Ach, a meds resister. I've known a few.
You all drive me NUTS!!!
And none of you can ever really put your finger on why you're like this!

(I hope you find some relief soon!).

That’s interesting - my hay fever gets worse when I go camping as I’m allergic to tree pollen. Even with medication it’s bad. Might suggest this is not hay fever but something else. I agree with the others about cleaning every day, changing pillow and washing bedding at 60. Hope you get it sorted.

Grass pollen I meant.

Montelukast

Bin all your old pillows and buy new anti allergen ones.
Wash your duvet on 60 degree heat.
Hoover the mattress .

Go and see the gp and get a prescription for fexofenadine, steroid nose spray and eye drops. Use them every day.

Keep the cat out of the bedroom.
Have shower and was your hair before bed.

Montelukast helped me in similar circs

If you get tests and work out what you are allergic to then there are lots of things you can do to minimise your allergic reaction...plus take medicine.

I have allergic rhinitis. I'm allergic to dust/dust mites. I have a special cover on my mattress and pillows. I have blinds rather than curtains in my bedroom. I hoover and wet dust regularly.

Showers help. Rinsing my face helps when I feel a bit allergic

I got to a salt cave for salt therapies. Salt baths help. I have a saline nasal rinse that gives me immense relief. Going for a walk on the beach helps (salty air)

Vitamin C is a natural anti histamine (there are other foods too)

I take a daily 10mg cetirizine, but my allergies are so well handled at the moment that if I miss a day it doesn't matter.

You have to actively treat it to get relief but you will feel so much better for doing so.

OP I take loratadine most of the year. It's a huge help and it's so cheap I have come to no harm as a result. If the ones you have don't clear things up there's a few different types. I have been on some kind of allergy treatment for hayfever since I was a baby. You'll be ok. I'm glad you're going to stop suffering needlessly. I'm also probably a bit allergic to the cats but only when they moult. Again the tablet helps with that.

As previous posters have advised you need to take preventive medication not wait until your neighbours are complaining. This is usually an oral long acting antihistamine daily and a nasal low dose steroid spray. These are cheap to buy over the counter.

Arrange an appointment with your GP for a referral for either skin prick allergy tests or blood RAST tests. NB you need to be off the antihistamines for 2weeks before you have the tests but they may take some months to arrange in the current pandemic.
Here is a good website with lots of good info

www.allergyuk.org

The fact that the allergies clear up when you go camping, and are worse indoors, suggests to me too that you may be allergic to something other than pollen. Might be dustmites or mould due to dampness. Or, of course, your cat...do you still have the allergies if you're away from the cat (on holiday, for example)? You could have more than one trigger though, and new allergies can develop too.

For me, I didn’t realise I was allergic to the cat until after she died and sixth months later I stopped having to use an inhaler for my asthma. The cat dander took a while to get rid of among the dust in my house and out of my system. A week wouldn’t be long enough to notice.

Feather pillows are a huge trigger for many. I have a memory foam pillow, it’s great. Hoover the mattress at least weekly and get hypoallergenic duvets that you can wash frequently as dust mites are another source of allergen.

Keep up with the antihistamines.

If finances permit, look into buying an air purifier. Also a hoover with a hepa filter. Hoovering by bedroom daily has made a huge difference.

I was like this every summer that I was living in London; apparently the pollen attaches itself to pollution particles make it more airborne or something along those lines.

It was absolutely debilitating. By mid afternoon my face would be swollen, sinuses completely blocked and I’d be absolutely wiped out. On the worst days I’d leave work early to go home to have a shower and go to bed and then work later in the evening when it seemed slightly better.

Even on the days where the streaming nose etc. seemed ok I was often extremely tired to the extent I’d fall asleep at my desk. In hindsight I think this was the allergies too.

I haven’t had one day like this since I moved out of London (still live in the SE).

I was under the care of an allergy clinic and on various combinations of antihistamines/nasal spray and a respiratory drug but, in all honesty, the medication didn’t really help much.

I’d treat yourself to new bedding. If you can’t afford the anti allergy stuff you could buy a cheap 4 tog duvet that’s machine washable so that you can at least keep it really clean.

Get a HEPA air filter for the cat too.

@snottery you have to KEEP TAKING the antihistamine religiously otherwise you'll only get a short relief.
I've found the beconase really helpful this year but used to use otrivine nose spray.
There's loads out there now and they dry up your runny nose, help stop the sneezing and coughing (I get a ticket cough).
I also use optrex eye bath if my eyes get really scratchy - usually after heavy rainfall/windy conditions.
Hope you get some relief soon xx
Ps don't have bedroom windows open as the pollen will come in and don't dry clothes or bedsheets on the line if you can help it.

Ex mil had a very old couch with feather stuffing. All the feathers were coming out of it. As soon as I sat on it I was sneezing and eyes were streaming. I'm also allergic to hay! My sister is very allergic to cats. She stayed in our house one night shortly after we got the cat and as soon as she went up to the bedroom she was sneezing etc. Luckily I found a Certidine to give her! My niece suffers terribly unless she takes an anti histamine in the morning and uses eye drops. She's definitely much worse from May onwards.

Go to a gp. Get medications. Stop living like this.

Oral Antihistamines work best cumulatively. If you take one after you’ve suffered a reaction it will help a bit but taking them regularly will eventually stop the reaction happening.

After 40 years of hay fever I know that I need to start taking the tablets every day from January onwards. By mid May I have enough built up in my system that I can cut back to one every 2/3 days. By August I can stop taking them until next January. On bad days I top them up with a nose spray and/or eye spray depending on my symptoms. I occasionally get a bad reaction to some unknown factor which covers me in hives and swellings (although that is much less frequent since our last cat died) and might need to pop an extra one then.

Like you I find my symptoms are much less severe in rural areas which make me think that London pollution increases my sensitivity to allergens in some way. When I visited Thailand last year I stayed in manly rural/coastal areas and they vanished entirely for 6 wonderful weeks.

If I didn’t use Antihistamines my allergies would be a massive, life changing issue but they are so easily controlled by very inexpensive drugs (I buy mine in Poundland or in bulk on Amazon) that I rarely even think about them until I see a thread like this.

@snottery all that worked for my husband was a kenalog shot. Cost £100 but since he had it he's had no symptoms though previously he suffered from debilitating hay fever and cat allergies. They last 6-12 months.

I haven't read the full thread so sorry if someone else has said this. I had this for years, I couldn't sleep for coughing and nothing the doctor gave made any difference. I did some research online and decided to try out things remedies. My cough was gone in a couple of days. I'm not sure which one worked so have carried on with all three. No horrible cough, running nose and watery stingy eyes for 3 years now. I take a spoonful of honey each money, have cut down dairy to the bare minimum, I never thought I could drink tea without milk but am used to it now. I drink red bush tea and that is much nicer without milk. I also put a spoonful of turmeric in anything I can. You can't taste it that much so put it in soups, cottage pie, pasta dishes. Everything has a healthy yellow glow in our house! I wish you luck I still think back to my cough days and don't know how I got through it - it was relentless.

I used to be like this when I lived with my parents, it was dust and cats...as soon as I moved out it stopped. I used to sneeze literally hundreds of times a day when I lived there.

You need to take a daily oral antihistamine. They work better if you take them routinely. You then need to use a Beconase (or generic equivalent) nasal spray when symptoms are bad. The nasal spray works really well but dries out your nose if you use it all the time. You can also get eye drops. If your allergy is year round then it’s most likely not hay fever. Remove feather pillows / cushions and reduce dust as much as possible.

But unless you take your antihistamines routinely you won’t get any sympathy from me!!