My 7 year old son constantly sniffing

[mumof2monsters]

My 7 year old son is constantly sniffing and horrible as I may sound it is driving me mad. I keep telling him to blow his nose but he cannot blow it properly and nothing comes out anyway. He does not seem to have a runny nose.
He is sniffing every 10 seconds or so and I am not sure what to do. He seems ok in himself and not poorly but this has been going on and off for the last 6 months or so.
I am starting to tell him off and I don't mean to but it does not sound nice and must be annoying for anyone sat next to him at school.
Anyone else had a problem with this.

could he be suffering from hay fever?

Not exactly - ours was coughing/throat clearing. It used to drive us mad, especially DH. I 'googled' it and once I realised it was 'normal' (as in something some children do some of the time) I was half way to fixing it - positive mental attitude and all that. I explained to DD (7) that it was a cycle i.e. the more she coughed the more she would need to cough and I encouraged her to have a sip of water every time she felt the need (which was many times a minute). That helped things a little. Then one night in the car I said to DD lets see if you can stop coughing until we get home (about 2 mins from home). She counted to about 100 before she coughed again. We continued with this getting further each time, both of us counting together. When it came to bed time I encouraged her to count in her head. Anyway, after a few days continuing like this it stopped. It had been going on for more than a couple of weeks and friends were beginning to comment and postulate their ideas as to what the 'problem' was .

I hope this helps (sorry it's so long but I thought you would appreciate the details). Good luck.

sounds like perennial allergic rhinitus to me.

Check it out with your GP.

lots of responses to a similar concern here: ask.metafilter.com/94080/Sniff-sniff

My ds now aged 12 used to clear his throat constantly. He then went on to doing this hidious eye brow lift combined twitch thingy .... really annoying and very unattractive At the moment his jerking his head as though he had a really long fringe and trying to get it out of his eyes - iyswim (he has a No. 4 hair cut ) Spoke to GP about it and he reckons very common in kids of all ages and is a very mild form of tourettes/habitual thing and they grow out of it.

Probably need to eliminate any medical reason first though. Good luck