So, I've got the sniffle, hack, blow, slightly fluttery, scratchy throat that makes you cough roughly, oh, every 2 milliseconds and that funny, tight feeling in your chest you get when you cough, well, every 2 milliseconds.
I get this every fall. For a while, when I first started teaching, I thought I was getting a cold or strep throat every single fall from my lovely, snotty little kids (one handed me their library book to check out yesterday and announced "I threw up last night." I whipped out the hand sanitizer.) and every single fall I went to the doctor and got a negative throat culture. Finally, I wised up. It's frackin' allergies. I didn't have allergies for years. Never a sniffle. I know I didn't have them when I went to college, although that's probably because there wasn't room in that tiny, tiny (100 pounds) body for any allergens. But, at some point, I developed them and now, every fall, like some sort of satanic, mucusy present, they appear again.
For a while, I had some great drugs I was taking and then those annoying drug people started buying up all the cold medicine to brew up vats of crap to sell in schoolyards and they quit making some of the good stuff. I've tried several things and nothing works very well. Allegra blows, I might as well take a sugar pill. Liz recommended some nasal spray and I need to follow up on that. In the meantime, I am clearing my throat so often that I am starting to annoy myself. Much less the people I work with. Pretty soon I'm going to start getting that sideways, slitty-eyed look people give you when you are being indescribably annoying and they are too polite to say anything. I had a "sniffer" who worked next to me for a while; I can empathize.
I'm really sorry. I'll try to stop coughing, sneezing, hacking, blowing my nose, wiping my eyes, clearing my throat. Just as soon as I find some allergy medicine that can blast open my sinuses and is just as good as, say, heroin.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Sniffle, Hack and Blow - the OTHER Dwarves
Posted by Jan Ross at 6:20 PM
Labels: Allergies, Sinus Medicine
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I can completely relate to the "good stuff" being gone thanks to scummy drug producers out there. But can I recommend a good one (well, it works for me) I use Tylenol Severe Allergy now, and here's the key to it working CONSISTANTLY: You must take it every 4 hours, ON THE DOT, whether you feel you need to or not. Because if I go even 4 & a half hours, I will be immediately thrown down into the snot and sniffle gutter. 4 hours...really really. That's the best OTC one I have found in all my drug samplings.
Good Luck!
When you're ready for the world of prescription drugs, I take Zyrtec-D and it works. I've had this problem for years and have tried numerous meds. The "D" in any of them is for decongestant. As opposed to just drying you up, it reduces swelling and opens up your head. You may still be a bit "damp". However, the decongestant part is what's most important to me. I can't stand having my head "sealed" closed. The "D" drugs open me up even if I'm still occasionally drippy. At least I can breathe even if I have to blow now and then. Most all of the RX drugs have that "D" connotation for decongestant. I guess they can't dry you up and open you up at the same time. As I said, I'll take open head and occasional nose blowing anytime.
Post a Comment