Dear Regular Readers,
Once again, welcome to this week’s edition of our weekly newsletter and as always a lot of effort has been put in to try to find news articles that we hope will appeal enough to you for you to want to click them open and read them. There is also my weekly or fortnightly (depending on how busy I am) contribution which you might say is a bit of a meandering read that is trying to chronicle my ongoing search to try find out why the heck I’m still suffering with nasal congestion after suffering with it since September/October 2021. Speaking of which, I think I’d better crack on with trying to conclude my health issue related tales of woe, so without further ado here goes.
Upon my return to hospital to see Dr Kurushima, I was told that my zinc level was a tad lower than normal and that my vitamin B12 level was more than a tad under the normal level, in fact, according to Dr Kurushima, it was low enough to possibly explain why I had this constant salty taste in my mouth and at times was feeling rather irritable. I, on the other hand, was not quite convinced that the salty taste in my mouth was the product of slightly low zinc and low vitamin B12 levels, maybe a cause of the irritability, but not the salty taste. I say this because I only experience the salty taste when I find myself with a mouthful of mucous which unfortunately is a regular occurrence throughout the day, every day for me. Although I explained this to Dr Kurushima he seemed not to pay it much heed, but rather said that he would be surprised if I still had a salty taste in my mouth after taking the course of vitamin B12 tablets he was about to prescribe for me.
Along with the vitamin B12 tablets Dr Kurushima also gave me more of the tablets I had been taking for congestion which included some medication for opening up the airways in my nasal passages, as well as some further sachets of Chinese herbal medicine for the dryness in my throat, so as usual I was going to be leaving the hospital with a bagful of medication which I have to say was beginning to weigh heavily on me (pun intended). I asked the doctor if I was still doing the right thing in regards to sleeping with the humidifier on and irrigating my nasal passages on a daily basis which he told me that I was and that I should continue to do so. I was then asked about my availability to return after completing my vitamin B12 course of medication and a firm date was set for another hospital visit. So with a another appointment firmly planted in my head, a clear file in my hand containing details of the freshly prescribed medication and a feeling of skepticism about where my treatment was going I headed off to pay my bill.
I started my course of vitamin B12 tablets and followed my daily dosage schedule with more intensity than I care to think about. I stopped taking the decongestant/expectorant tablets simply because I felt they were not doing me any good at all and I was quite honestly fed up of taking them. I did try taking the Chinese herbal medicine for my dry throat, but again I felt that it wasn’t doing any good, so I decided to knock that one on the head as well. At this point in the proceedings, I made the decision to leave the hospital and doctor visits out for a while and see if implementing some further lifestyle changes would lead me to feeling better on myself; I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to try a self-intervention approach to relieving me of my symptoms. As I have mentioned quite a bit throughout my journey thus far, I understand that many of us find ourselves needing some type of medication at certain times in our lives to recover from whatever ailments we have; however, considering the quantity I have been putting into my system since October 2021, I figured it was time to call it a day and see what the self- doctoring approach had to offer.
Fast forward to last Saturday, 16th April and I found myself paying my doctor an impromptu visit to inform him that my condition had somewhat improved in the sense that I was no longer coughing as much as I had been, my throat was not as dry as before and the feeling of congestion had somewhat subsided; however, I was still suffering with blocked nasal passages with some associated pain, bad breath from the mucous that was still entering into my mouth from my nasal passages, and I could still feel a something stuck at the back of my throat, although not as pronounced as before. Dr Kurushima went through the usual routine of checking my nasal passages and at the back of my throat and he reported that all seemed quite normal. He suggested that I have a further blood test to see if my vitamin B12 level had jumped back up to normal which I agreed to have. I asked about testing for allergies just to rule out any possibility of an allergy being responsible for my condition and that was also added to the menu of blood tests the doctor gave me. I was told to return in 7 days for the blood test results.
7 days later I was back to see the doctor to listen to the results of my blood tests; I was told that my vitamin B12 levels were almost back to normal and I had no allergies; so what exactly was my problem? I asked the doctor to confirm what it was that I was suffering with and he told me in his opinion it was non-allergic rhinitis which is what I was told at the very start of my journey of discovery, non-allergic rhinitis combined with sinusitis, post nasal drip, pharyngitis and laryngitis. So now it seems I just have non-allergic rhinitis which I believe encapsulates some of the aforementioned complaints, but the real bugger with all this is that non-allergic rhinitis is apparently incurable. It’s just one of those health problems that will either continue to be a problem all year round, it will just occur at certain times of the year or it might just disappear altogether (fingers crossed it’s the latter).
Usually, people with non -allergic rhinitis suffer with a permanent runny nose and they sneeze a lot, both of which I hardly suffer with at all. Then a bizarre sort of conversation took place with Dr Kurushima; he asked me if I wanted to have some further vitamin B12 tablets to which I replied: ‘Do you think I need them?’ To which he replied : (looking at his computer screen) ‘No I don’t think so”. He then asked me if I wanted to have any further nasal sprays for my nose and I asked him the same question: ‘Do you think I need them?’ To which he again replied: ‘No I don’t think so’. He finally asked me if I wanted to try a different type of Chinese herbal medicine to try to reduce the congestion and mucous build up at the back of my throat which I decided was not a bad idea, so I agreed to a 10 day supply of that. I was then told to return in 10 days if I was still experiencing a feeling of stuffiness in my nose and at the back of my throat. And that was that, I left and went to pay my bill and collect my sachets of herbal medicine.
So how do I feel at the very time I am typing this update for you? Well, I am happy to report that I actually feel a bit better, I’m not sure how much of my improvement is down to the warmer weather that we are currently experiencing, the new herbal medicine I have been taking or if the rhinitis has just run its course and it’s ready to leave me for good, (praying for the latter). Most of the congestion in my chest seems to have left me, but the sudden swelling of my nasal passages is still an issue as is the ongoing production of sticky salty tasting mucous, but that has also abated a little bit. I still suffer with some throat dryness first thing in a morning, but not as much as I did; overall, I don’t feel so bad, but there is still some way to go yet to reach a full recovery, that’s if I ever recover completely.
Next week I’ll hopefully be back with some poetic lines of verse for you to try to decipher or some food recipe or other that I tried to follow over the weekend to feed my family; until then, keep well and enjoy the warm weekend weather.
