So another random anosmia post! The latest on the anosmia front is that after almost 40 years of living in a very dry southwest USA climate, the past 2 years being in a hugely populated, polluted, dusty and hot area of southern California, my wife and I have thankfully moved to a smaller community just north of San Diego and for the first ever, are 3 1/2 miles from the beach.
Wow...talk about a run on sentence!
So we are living near the beach where the temperatures got into the high 80's maybe 3 times during the entire summer and we are loving it.
When we first got here in the spring, I went to yet another ENT to have her take a look inside my sinuses. Of course she confirmed, and for the first time I actually saw the polyps in my sinuses. She was not so insistent on surgery but of course she said that it was an option.
She suggested two things. One was to use budenoside rather than Flonase or Nasonex or Nasacort and prescribed it to be used with a nebulizer twice a day. Well, that lasted about a month. I just could not deal with standing there with this nebulizer for 5 minutes or so twice a day.
The other thing she suggested was that I start my allergy shots again and felt that I might get better relief this time around. I told her I did them for almost 3 years and 1, my anosmia did not get better and 2, the polyps still kept recurring. She said she just felt she should test me again. So I asked her "what am I allergic to" at this point?? I felt that after 3 years of previous allergy shots, it almost just sounds like a money grab. She felt that doing it with an ENT might be better than with an allergist.
So I'm debating yet again whether I want to go through this. The drive down to see her, the drive back up, the expense etc.
Other than that, nothing much else to report. Best to all who occasionally read this.
5 comments:
Sounds like the doctor is refusing to admit being beaten. Yes, that is turning you into an ATM. Might be her foolish pride, or simple greed, but you are being chumped.
I've been circling anosmia treatments for five years now and every doctor is like that - let's just keep doing what failed until you go away - I will never tell you to stop treatment and admit failure.
Doctors think it's okay to treat people this way, but it isn't. It's wrong.
Sounds like the doctor is refusing to admit being beaten. Yes, that is turning you into an ATM. Might be her foolish pride, or simple greed, but you are being chumped.
I've been circling anosmia treatments for five years now and every doctor is like that - let's just keep doing what failed until you go away - I will never tell you to stop treatment and admit failure.
Doctors think it's okay to treat people this way, but it isn't. It's wrong.
Hey, I just found your blog. A friend led me to it because I've been experiencing anosmia for about a year. We now think it's aspirin-induced asthma, which weirdly, you can develop without exposure to aspirin. Have you ruled that out yet for yourself? I haven't developed polyps yet, but apparently they are extremely common in AIA. Not all ENTs know how to diagnose AIA. But you are close to Scripps, and that's where they've done a lot of research on AIA. I found it so helpful to talk to an AIA specialist.
I have recently had sinus surgery and after 10 weeks I still cannot smell and my taste is iffy. I can taste things like apple juice but not most other things. I too had a year of allergy shots and when re-tested, I showed no reaction. All the same, I still have a runny nose and sound like I have a cold when I talk. I take one adult aspirin per day. Any comments?
I saw four ENTs, an allergy specialist, and a pulmonologist. None of them mentioned aspirin-induced asthma as a possibility. It's also called Samter's Triad, and many other things. Most doctors only heard about it in med school and have never diagnosed a case of it in their lives. The three of the main symptoms of it are: sinusitis, nasal polyps, and asthma. Anosmia is also very common. The weird thing is, you can get it by exposure to aspirin, but also other NSAIDs, like advil, and worst of all, it causes a metabolic disorder in the body that continues in the absence of the allergen! Once you've got it, you don't have to be exposed to NSAIDs to feel sick with it all the time. There is something called aspirin desensitization that they do for some patients, but mostly it's controlled by topical steriods like Flonase, and sometimes leukotriene blockers. I only found out about it because my partner kept Googling different combinations of my symptoms. I'd been taking very small doses of ibuprofen for years. Once I stopped taking it, my symptoms have been easier to control with the steroids, while before, they hardly touched it. If you're curious about AIA, search some of the medical articles online and see if it seems like it applies to you, then ask your doctor about it... bring them the article, 'cause they probably know less about it than you do!
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