Saturday, November 13, 2010

Needing to sneeze

If you notice I am catching up on posting today :)  I had some half-finished posts and I figured I should get them done.

I think many people don't realize that I almost always have a need to sneeze.  It can vary in intensity, but it is always there to one level or another.  Its like a tingling or tickle deep in my nose and it spreads when I actually am going to start sneezing.  It can spread really slow or really fast or at almost any speed.   I don't like it super fast because then I am not ready for the fit.  Its best when it spreads slow enough so I can get ready for it and even get away by myself before the fit starts.

The intensity of the tickle depends on how bad my allergies are at the time.  On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being sneezing, I often am around a 5 or 6.  It can be a bit distracting sometimes but as I mentioned at least it helps me sometimes be able to keep track of when I am about to start sneezing.  If its in the winter and I am not around anything I am allergic to at all for a while, it gets as low as a 2.  When my allergies are really bad it can sometimes never go below a 9.

From what I have been told, most people sneeze and that feeling of needing to sneeze goes away for a while.  For me it doesn't.  No matter how much I sneeze, that feeling of needing to sneeze is still there.  It is usually lessened for a while after a fit at least.  Its like sneezing fits just give me partial relief.

Cold and allergies

I just got over having a cold.  People often ask me things like "how can you tell when you have a cold?" or "Maybe its not allergies, maybe its a cold."  I guess these are people who don't have allergies!  Yea, some symptoms are similar, but they are different, so it is easy to tell.  I will say that is IT a pain to have a cold on top of allergies.

These are the things that happen when I get a cold on top of my allergies: 

With allergies, I can get worn-out, but when I have a cold its more like having a feeling of physical weakness, different from feeling worn out from doing alot of activity.

My sneezing feels harsher and it feels like something could spray from my mouth.  I also notice that my snot is thicker and more yellowish instead of clear or white.

My sinuses hurt differently when I have a cold.  Sometimes when my allergies are bad my sinuses will hurt, but with a cold they hurt differently.  I can't really explain better than that.

When I have a cold, my throat hurts and I cough.  I don't cough from allergies and at the worst my throat will tickle/itch but not hurt.

When I have a cold, my teeth hurt.  Yea it sounds weird, but it happens. 

When I have a cold, inside my nose burns.  With allergies it is tickles or itches or tingles or has a throbbing feeling, but when I have a cold it feels more like a burning.

I am curious if other people with allergies have a similar experience.  I don't think many people read my blog, but if you do, and have allergies, can you share what it is like for you having a cold with allergies?

Why I like chatting online

I was chatting with someone recently online about why I like to chat online and I wanted to post about it.

Most of the time I am very congested and its pretty impossible for me to not sound all stuffed up when I talk (even though I keep trying).  I just don't like the way I sound like that, I am embarrassed by it, and it feels like more of an effort to talk.  My sneezing also interrupts my conversations.  I have to stop what I am saying while I am sneezing and people will stop talking while I am sneezing.   I really feel bad about disrupting conversations like that and I hate all the focus from people when I have a fit in the middle of a conversation.  It also really sucks when I am trying to answer a question, or I really need to tell someone something, but I can't because I am sneezing so much.  It can cause problems.

When I chat online I can avoid most of that.  The congestion is not an issue at all and some of the fits I can still type through and the sneezing is less of a disruption for an online conversation.  When my allergies are really bad, it gets pretty hard to talk, but it is much easier to chat online.  So if it seems like my allergies are always bad when I am online, that's why.  When they aren't that bad I tend to be online less.