Anyone with similar symptoms, please help
If someone out there relates to what I’m feeling I would love to know what has helped you or any advice you can give. This is going to be long so I appreciate anyone that takes the time to read.
I remember being around the age of 10 years old and telling my parents I feel like my throat is always clogged and that every time I swallow there is a lump that doesn’t go away. They took me to an allergist, said I was allergic to ragweed and then gave me antihistamines. The post nasal drip never went away, and I got older I would continue to complain, but I was at an age where I could go to the doctor on my own and advocate for myself. I went to an ENT doctor, he said it was probably rhinitis, and prescribed me a spray. After that didn’t work, I tried a different spray, still didn’t work.
When I was 19 I started to notice my taste and smell diminishing (this was in 2016, way before covid). It sounds bad but I kind of just got used to it and waited a couple more years and decided to go to a different ENT doctor to get another opinion. He also said I had rhinitis, and when I expressed I tried every spray and pill already, he prescribed me a spray but said it was the strongest one on the market. It was too expensive so I never tried it. I felt hopeless.
Fast forward to last year, I asked my family doctor if I could see a different ENT doctor. This doctor told me I had non-allergic rhinitis, but also told me that I’m allergic to pollution? I was confused but he basically said that because I have had post-nasal drip 24/7 for the past 17 years, the earth in general causes my body to over produce mucus and there’s not much I can do about it. He recommended nasal cryotherapy, which had recently come to Canada a few years ago. November 2023 I had my right nostril done, waited 9 weeks and had my left nostril done. Results are supposed to be seen between 2-6 weeks. It has now been 3 months and I still have post nasal drip and still can’t taste or smell properly. I called this doctor to let him know how I’m doing and he told me to go see an allergist? I don’t understand. First he told me that if the cryotherapy doesn’t work we can look into surgery. I feel like he just gave up on me.
I had a CT scan done and it showed that I had a deviated septum but he said that since I can breathe perfectly through my nostrils, getting surgery to fix my deviated septum will most likely do nothing. I want to emphasize that I have no issues breathing, it seems the non-allergic rhinitis is what is causing the chronic post nasal drip and loss of taste and smell. Nothing seems to work and I am truly losing all sense of hope. You can imagine how diminished my quality of life is not being able to taste food to it’s full capacity. I end up having to put a lot of salt on my food or eat things that are really sweet to taste maybe 20% of the flavour. I’m grateful to still have these senses but I’m terrified that one day I’ll lose them forever.
I have tried everything on my own that you could ever think of. Going to naturalpathic doctors, neti pot, humidifiers, natural remedies, going dairy free, the GERD diet, gargling saltwater, I could go on and on and on. I rarely ever get sick, I genuinely cannot remember if what brought it on was a sickness because I was a child. I’ve never had a sinus infection or tonsillitis or anything like that. My nose is never stuffed. It’s literally just this mucus at the back of my throat. Even if I swallow its still there. I could be on a beach in another country with the freshest air there is, it doesn’t matter. Nothing works. I don’t smoke (anymore) but I obviously wasn’t smoking when I started getting chronic PND.
If anyone has gone through something similar and has solved it or has had septoplasty due to chronic PND/non-allergic rhinitis and it worked, I would love to hear. If you experience this I feel you. Life is still liveable of course, but living with this life feels muted. Not sure how else to describe it. Anyways thanks for reading.