I can’t breathe right now and it sucks. I’ve told you already about my abnormally large sinuses and complained about not being able to breathe, but so far 2009 has just been unbearable. And these days it’s worse than it normally is because of my continued and doctor-recommended daily consumption of loratadine (the active ingredient in Claritin), which has caused my body to have built an immunity to the drug. I’m wary of taking more than one pill (10 mg) per day and that amount no longer has any effect whatsoever on my head. So that means that I am — for the third time this year — dealing with short-term nasal spray addiction.

If you look at the bottles of nasal spray in the grocery store, you’ll see that they are all the exact same thing: oxymetazoline hydrochloride. One dose — two shots in each nostril — is allegedly supposed to provide relief for twelve hours. Unfortunately for me the effects last only about eight hours, and the rebound is usually worse than the original problem. I have to pay close attention to when I “shoot up” because it is a disaster if I am stuck at the office or asleep in the middle of the night and cannot breathe. At work it is just absurd because when the drug dissipates I literally cannot function. I can’t concentrate and I’m miserable. If I’m marooned in the middle of the night, I start to snore so badly that I have to sleep alone and I wake with bloody lips which have cracked and split because I’ve been breathing through my mouth.

So there you go. There’s not much of a point to be made here. It just sucks.


There are 2 comments on this post

  1. David,
    I feel your pain. I am still trying to purge the allergens from FL from my system. I am sort of used to the stuffy, runny nose (which seems like an oxymoron), the itchy eyes, the dry, cracked skin around my nose and upper lip, and the dry, cracked lips. It is the Pink Panther insulation in my lungs that I just can’t tolerate. Oh to inhale deeply and freely again… (By the way, I have heard good things about the Sinus Rinses. I have been trying one for a little while but inconsistently. Maybe you should check them out and lay off the other stuff.)

  2. Yo David, have you tried Nasonex? I had the exact same problem, using the over-the-counter sprays that really just made the problem worse after it wore off. Nights were the worst. Got a prescription for Nasonex and it solved everything. Plus the bee in the commercials is pretty cool.

Add to the discussion:

I'll never share your email address and it won't be published.

What Is This?

davidgagne.net is the personal weblog of me, David Vincent Gagne. I've been publishing here since 1999, which makes this one of the oldest continuously-updated websites on the Internet.

bartender.live

A few years ago I was trying to determine what cocktails I could make with the alcohol I had at home. I searched the App Store but couldn't find an app that would let me do that, so I built one.

Hemingway

You can read dozens of essays and articles and find hundreds of links to other sites with stories and information about Ernest Hemingway in The Hemingway Collection.