Sunday, September 07, 2008

The ears

I must do something about my ear. I keep thinking the problem is  going away - then this morning I woke up with an awful buzzing and not a lot of hearing in my right ear. In fact I felt awful all morning despite getting a decent night's sleep. I've put off making an appointment with the doctor. I'm not sure what they can do It seems to me the problem is being triggered by sinusitis. There's a problem in the left ear too and I wake up with a stuffy nose - so it may all be the result of indulgence (a meal at Little Chef) last night. It is a lot better than it was in August. There's still a slight buzzing tonight. Maybe I'll give it a couple of days and see how I get on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I found your blog by chance. You may probably already know it by now, but in case you don't, there is a discussion group on Samter's Triad on Yahoo.

Your very detailed dietary accounts are highly interesting. If I may make a few comments :
- Samter's Triad is not the same as salicylate sensitivity (one can have both or just one of them), but they obviously are not too distant;
- how do you know for sure you have one or the other or both?
- in the context of Samter's Triad, trying to totally evict Omega6s is likely not recommended (they're essential, and it will make you all the more sensitive to them); moderately evicting direct arachidonic acid sources (eggs, high-fat meat, farmed salmon, etc) might prove useful ; totally evicting alcohol is necessary ; going low on high-glycemic index foods is recommended ; a mediterranean-style diet is generally thought useful against allergies;
- if you have salicylate sensitivity, have you tried a slow self-desensitization, like, for instance, eating a (frozen?) raspberry a day for a week, then two, etc ?
- Dr. Floyd Chilton published an interesting book on fats and allergies ("Inflammation Nation").

Good luck,
asfyso@yahoo.fr

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your comments. The Samters Triad group is a closed forum - you can't just browse it - so I'll have to join. I don't have it - it seems to be far worse than what I have - but clearly salicylate hypersensitivy can develop into Samters if not detected and dealt with in good time. Hence the chronic non-allergenic rhinitis (ie stuffy nose).

I talked to my dietician about omega 6 as you may have spotted. It's helpful to know it's part of the problem because I've found that eating fish for a couple of days can go a long way to stabilising things when the going gets rough.It's also the best option when eating out - even if the caterers sprinkle it with pepper and herbs. I had a very nice piece of trout a couple of days ago - took montelukast for two days and had very few problems apart from the brief outbreak of hives mentioned on the blog later.

regards