HELP! My Sinuses Are Trying to Kill Me :(
Posted , 10 users are following.
(CW disgusting post / phlegm)
Hello All -
I'm writing in a moment of despair, like many people here, since I really believe my sinuses are trying to drown me in my own phlegm whilst sleeping.
I live in a world where I constantly have to spit out post-nasal drip, and it drains into my back while laying down or sleeping. Sometimes it's been so bad, I've filled up a whole cup over the course of an hour just spitting into it, bit by bit.
I'd originally thought it was asthma, but after many visits to pulmonologists, ENTs, and allergists, we've concluded that mostly all this horrible phlegm is coming from the sinuses behind my nose. If I don't constantly spit it out, it drains down my back, slowly inhibiting my ability to breathe.
Last night, I went to bed feeling great, but this morning, I woke up and had to spend an hour coughing not-even-all of the accumulated crap out of my back and lungs, through a variety of breathing exercises and moving around to force air into different parts of my chest, back, and lungs.
After about 30 minutes, I unlocked some bigger pieces of phlegm - which usually happens during this process. Coughing them up almost causes me to throw up, but I feel a considerable improvement in breathing afterwards.
Today, after spending close to an hour in my bathroom just spewing stuff into my sink, I was able to breathe mostly-normally, as I slowly feel bits of phlegm fall down the top of my back from my sinuses.
The only alternative I have to this gross bathroom process is exercise, which effectively causes me to hock up all this phlegm on the streets. I exercise about 2h a day, and only after ~90 minutes do I get to the big pieces of phlegm that really affect my breathing.
But during the exercise, I have to be respiring heavily *and* I have to be projecting air out of my lungs (like by singing). Changes in my posture also unlock new layers of phlegm that I have to cough out.
I don't smoke. While I do enjoy vaping cannabis, I've taken a break from that to try to alleviate my symptoms. I haven't seen any reduction or correlation in my phlegm from vaping or not; only that it gets worse if I do it constantly (which I haven't done in a long time).
(*PLEASE NOTE* - while "vaping" isn't necessarily "the subject", it's vastly important to mention as a potential irritant and cause of my sinus issue. It is medically important info/context to disclose, despite anyone's personal objections)
Funny enough - I just went on a 10-day trip to Florida, after about a week, I cleared up and returned to NYC feeling great. After a couple days back, I'm back to square one.
I live in a relatively-new apartment building (from 2008). I have a hospital-quality air filter (IQ Air ProPlus) and an air quality monitor to ensure it's not my environment that's causing this issue.
The air quality monitor routinely has the particulates (PM10) in my apartment under 100, PM2.5 is close to zero.
Drugs I take -
* Morning - 2 hits of Dulera 200/5, 2 sprays of Flonase, 2 sprays of Azelastine, 10mg Zyrtec (24h)
* Evening - 2 hits of Albuterol, 2 sprays of Flonase, 2 sprays of Azelastine
The only thing that really works is Mucinex-D, but I can't take that every day, and I'll build up a tolerance after a while.
What's going on??? I've been to so many doctors, I take so many drugs... I've made sure to sleep on an incline, I've cut out dairy, and I've stopped eating right before I go to bed.
Now I wake up hungry, nauseous, and still have the same exact amount of phlegm in my lungs when I wake up.
I don't really get reflux, though, if I spend a lot of time coughing while exercising, it does eventually start happening.
So, please, any help would be much appreciated. I've done all the low-hanging-fruit, I'm taking all the drugs I can, I've seen all the doctors I can, and really, nothing has helped.
Thanks!
1 like, 23 replies
tyler2016 newmie
Posted
I'm so sorry. I'm in the same boat, the only thing that gives me slight relief is Mucinex-D, the occasional neti pot, and oral steroids (if it's a really severe case). The oral steroids seem to cut down the inflammation enough to finally let all that stuff drain properly.
I can totally relate to wondering if it's asthma. There are many times a day I feel like I can't breathe and end up having to spit out the phlegm. (Hot tea herbal and honey helps, but before long the phlegm builds right back up.)
I suffer from anxiety and depression and these symptoms have really made the issues so much worse. The doctors want to chalk it up to anxiety, but I constantly tell them that when the physical symptoms are gone, I'm fine! It's when I can't breathe that I start to understandably feel anxious.
I've cut dairy, gluten, and cut back on sugar. I've really seen no difference.
Stay strong and I hope you can find some relief. This is such a miserable thing and it's so frustrating that doctors seem to be clueless on what to do.
newmie tyler2016
Posted
Well at least I'm not the only one, and I'm pretty sure it's not "New York", although each day back has been progressively worse.
The same thing happened last night - mostly clear when I went to bed turned into an hour of me coughing crap into my sink while on the verge of throwing up... again today.
Nothing I'm doing seems to be working, though I'm trying to figure out what I unlocked my last few days in Florida where I was feeling really good. Perhaps the humidity helped me there? Usually I find that higher humidity does make it harder to breathe.
My experience from ENTs is that they expect you to exclude "whatever" for *at least* a year, just to see if it had an effect on your sinuses. It may not. That's a horrible experiment - if I was able to turn my breathing around in a week (or possibly less), I need to figure out what it was.
If I stoped vaping for a year but then walked through some secondhand smoke on the street, would it kill all my progress?
Much luck to you too - enjoy that NC BBQ!~
melodyNYC newmie
Posted
@newmie. I came to this thread because I've been having a lot of trouble with post nasal drip, which is affecting my ability to speak clearly (without sounding like I have a cold), my ability to exercise at the gym (because I have to clear my throat all the time) and ability to sleep (I wake up every 2 hours)..... However, when I read your note, where you talked about coughing up thick phlegm, I think you might have a different issue. A friend of mine had a problem similar to yours about a year ago, where he'd find himself coughing up heavy phlegm in the middle of the day and couldn't understand what was wrong. He was in good shape physically, etc. When it got really really bad one day, he went to the hospital's emergency department, and they diagnosed him with congestive heart failure - and if he had waited even a day longer, they told him he wouldn't be alive. The coughing up heavy phlegm was a sign of the heart issue. I thought I'd mention this to you because your symptoms sound similar to the way his were. By the way, my friend was treated in the hospital for about 10 days, put on a strict low salt/liquid diet for about six months - and today he's fine.
newmie
Posted
Quick update -
I've seen some more ENTs and allergists, tried some more nasal sprays and inhalers, even tried one of those "pollution" masks... and nothing seems to help.
I now take THREE nasal sprays twice a day (Flonase / Azelastine / Ipratroprium Bromide), as well as two antihistimines (chlorpheniramine in the morning, Allegra at night), and two inhalers (Dulera 200/5 in the morning - two hits, albuterol / ProAir at night). I HAVE NO CLUE what any of this is actually doing to help. As I'm tying this, I can feel more of my sinuses drain into my mouth, where, if I weren't conscious about it, would all go into my back, slowly drowning me.
In fact, a friend of mine had just left and I spent the last half hour coughing all the stuff that had accrued into my back and lungs out... so I can breathe and speak more clearly. Over the course of the last day, I didn't feel particularly phlegmy and could breathe pretty well, but something over the last night into today (hadn't gone outside, only ate a small breakfast of two eggs) has triggered the "phlegm faucet" and sprayed a ton of s**t down my back.
The worst of it is, I don't really feel ANY of it (at all) until I try to exercise or move around in a way that makes me feel like I'm at the tail end of a never-ending respiratory infection, though just about all the phlegm is clear.
There is an environmental aspect to it - I'd tried to stay inside for a while and I had got better (I have a crazy air filter in my apt), but not back to where I was a month ago on vacation in Florida. There also has to be a food aspect to it as well - eating right before bed is a mistake; however, then I'm extremely hungry and nauseous when I wake up, which I assume, doesn't help any "reflux" that might be causing this either.
And I haven't smoked or vaped anything in weeks - my symptoms have shown *NO CHANGE* since.
The last note from my doctor - whom I saw this past week - perhaps now I'm taking "too many" drugs, but I'm only "minorly allergic to things" (after an intradermal allergy test).
This is killing me and severely affecting my quality of life, not to mention is causing me to miss social occasions because I'm stuck in the bathroom hocking up a lung WITHOUT SMOKING A DAMN THING OR BEING SICK.
Please help!
newmie
Posted
@melodyNYC - PS I did also have a thorough physical with EKG / ECG / ultrasound and my heart's doing well
rosanna27156 newmie
Posted
dena64643 newmie
Posted
Agweratwo newmie
Posted
Hello @Newmie,
I have been searching the internet and happened to land on your posts about this problem of mucus drowning feeling!
My mother is 82 and she's really living a miserable life, hardly sleeping for an hour at a time, before she has wake up to deal with the phlegm at the back of her throat. My mum, bless her, has somehow figured out how to manually drain her sinus but this then causes her pain on her face and headache above one eye! only for a short term relief after.
She has suffered with this problem for over five years and unlike the posts I have seen here, she does not live in New York, neither has she even visited America. she lives in Uganda but currently in London.
On reading your post, it matches exactly what my mum is going through and I've only just been able to understand it better, from your explanations ,despite observing her very closely day and night for the last three months!
I've taken her to the ENT specialist who did an endoscopy and CT scan that did not show any problems. She is on a nose spray and was put on capsules for acid reflux. All these do not yield any results.
I'm getting in touch to see how you've dealt with this problem.
Thanks in advance.