Ear popping

Went out for a meal with friends last night and totally forgot to warn them I had some dietary problems. I thought they knew and it was only when another guest was being assured he would get chops and not casserole I realised I'd been forgotten. A quick trip to the kitchen and an apologetic word with the host and some fish was hastily grilled instead. Bet I don't get many more dinner invitations..

There were some doughballs with garlic. This morning when I got up it felt like I was getting a cold and my right ear was almost glued to the pillow with wax. Thankfully it cleared quickly enough.

Then today I popped into a local fete and, feeling hungry, bought a beefburger. It was nice and meaty and felt free of the additives you get in a take-away. However a little peppery.

By the time I left my ears were popping. It took several days to shake off the deafness in my right ear last week. We discovered we had some ear cleaner, made from purified salt water, in stock and that certainly helped as a syringe. The wax that came out stank horribly.

By Thursday I had my hearing back and thought the problem was pretty well gone. Tonight the ear is really sore although, thankfully, the hearing's still okay.

Hay fever in the ear

Woke up with quite a painful ear-ache today and the loss of most of the hearing in one ear.

It's probably the result of mowing the lawn yesterday. I've done a quick check on "sinusitis" and "ear-ache" just to confirm my hunch. Yes, indeed, it seems allergic reactions are a common cause of ear-ache. Unfortunately swimming may also aggravate it as can wearing mp3 player headphones (while mowing the lawn). So that could spoil my coming summer holidays.

As I explained to someone I was talking to, I've got hay fever in my ear.

Some of my common sense responses seem to be supported - warm water to wash the ear, preferably salted so as to be antiseptic. I've found that doing a kind of deep swallowing also seems to help.

I'm still not sure about taking montelukast daily. After about three days it seems to destabilise me.

So today I'm trying a double dose of anti-histamines, remembering that the specialist told me originally I could take up to three one-a-days at a time. So far the relief is limited.

Side-effects

I was going to write something about the horrific side-effects of montelukast, as described by Wikipedia, but events overtook me.

I never really recovered from that week of living out of a suitcase and in particular from eating my first restaurant pizza in two years. Despite taking montelukast daily, by the middle of last week I was, bizarrely, losing my hearing in one ear and still suffering quite a few other problems. I think it was severe sinusitis, aggravated by lots of midsummer grass and weed cuttings.

Then I got frightened by reading about the side-effects. So for seven days it's been fish, zero-salicylate food and no pills. I'm still not sure I've stabilised but there's less hay fever than before.

I was talking to someone about fish and meat the other day and they were reminiscing about one of the big city markets. According to them, the meat market was loud and aggressive, the fish market much gentler. So does eating fish rather than meat make you calmer, maybe help to sharpen the brain also? I'm not sure.

Here's the Wikipedia article on montelukast.

Salicylate free compost?

My dietician told me that salicylate levels in mushrooms depend on where they are grown. From experience and deduction, I long ago worked out that commercial mushrooms are very bad. I've eaten, large fresh from the field mushrooms and they have been delicious and harmless.

I have on my conscience the large number of banana skins I dispose of. Our local "green waste" collection system will only collect garden waste and I don't want kitchen waste on my compost heap either. And our Prime Minister, rightly if sanctimoniously, urges us to stop wasting food.

So my plan is to get a small sealed compost bin, possibly one of the kitchen waste bins that contain organisms to digest waste, and fill it with low-salicylate waste - banana skins, bits of carrot, rotten fruit, topped up with the occasional spade full of grass from the lawn. Eventually I might even grow mushrooms in this compost.

However I fear a flaw in this plan. I have absolutely no evidence that banana skins are low in salicylate. Salicylate is normally found in outer skins, such as wood bark, and presumably the reason that bananas tend to be okay is that they are the flesh of the fruit, not the skin. How can I find out?

Train the caterers!

Living out of a suitcase this week I've experienced varying treatment at the hands of caterers.

In fact, I've never come across a caterer who understands salicylate hypersensitivity. You are often asked about special dietary requirements - vegetarianism, which is entirely voluntary, they understand, and diabetes of course.

Nor have I ever come across a caterer who has sent a message back asking what to do. What I usually do is write some general advice when asked about "special dietary requirements" - it is usually ignored.

I will say something like "plain food, no sauces or herbs, fish is good as are bananas and chocolate." That will generally allow me to choose my own vegetables. On Monday night I sat down to eat at a conference centre and no provision had been made. As it happens the staff were good and made an effort.

I arrived home last night in a terrible state, even after taking Montelukast daily. The first thing I did was to make myself a zero-salicylate meal with fish, peas and carrots. I wasn't sure whether I could stomach any more fish - but it was okay.

On Wednesday night I had eaten my first commercial pizza for two years. I did so on the grounds that it was a fish pizza. It used just two herbs, organon and caper, along with copious quantities of tomato. I cannot remember all the species of sea-food it involved.

The previous night I had a Chinese. Everybody was eating a shared, set meal but I had a fish fillet with sweet corn separately. It looked disgusting on the plate. The problem with Chinese meals is you do not know what fats are being used to cook and what additives are being used.

So my original point: should we not start lobbying for catering colleges to teach about salicylate hypersensitivity? It does not seem to be that rare and is responsible, for far as I can tell, for a kind of asthma, for nasty skin diseases and a host of other conditions.

Hay fever - a theory

I'm suffering from hay fever - I'm convinced. I can't get hay fever, my specialist told me so, as I spent my childhood making hay, really, making hay on a farm. Thatwas even though I have vivid memories of "summer colds".

It feels like a cold - a slightly runny nose, a slightly sore eye, a touch of sinusitis. But it's not a cold, not the way I remember them. Colds, I seem to remember, get in your head too. The virus plays havoc with your mind, wipes your memory and makes you miserable all round.

This is uncomfortable and the sore eye is the same as I had before we got this diagnosed, got the diet right.

It's been a funny old week. I went on a conference at the weekend and it included a formal dinner. These are the worst - no menu choice, no chance to cook it yourself and, as usual, they had utterly ignored the dietary advice I sent through. Nevertheless they agreed to whip up a salmon which arrived dressed in parsley and dill. Not too bad.

On the strength of that promise I tackled the starter. Again no choice. It was melon, strawberry, lots of sweet fruits, all inedible. I ate the melon. And I drank a lot of whisky.

No serious problems although I was tired the next day. But the only meat I ate throughout was fish. I thought we were doing well at home too this week - quite a lot of fish in the diet. So why have I now got hay fever?

Well tonight they served up, from the freezer what looked like chips but were in fact those spicy potatoes in their skins that you get at Harvester. That cannot have helped.

Nevertheless I just find it funny that I should suffer from hay fever during the hay fever season. it wasn't like this during the winter - a stuffy nose yes, but not a runny one and not the sore eye, which has now returned. The other day we went out to lunch and our hostess served a Greek-style lunch. Lots of delicious salads and olive oil. Then later, as I sniffed away, she asked me if I suffered from hay fever.

So this is my theory. Hay fever sufferers react to pollen in the atmosphere. But in the city in the spring time there is other particulate matter in the atmosphere - namely grass cuttings, hedge trimmings etc So maybe that causes a kind of pseudo-hay fever.

Stroke, Parkinson's and tomatoes

Today's frightening story links hay fever to stroke.

A study in South Carolina suggests hay fever sufferers face a doubled risk of having stroke. Apparently earlier reports have also linked stroke to asthma. And I recall that other report linking allergies to Parkinson's disease. Now the South Carolina finding may be a freak. After all, although it involved some 9,000 people only 125 suffered strokes.

What's the common thread? It's that some allergies cause long-term, low level inflammation which could ultimately lead to all sorts of illnesses. As it happens there is Parkinson's disease in my family. I was talking to the person concerned over the last few days and discovered he has a life-long aversion to tomatoes. I didn't know that but he's a relative and I was also never keen on strongly flavoured tomato products. I don't mind fresh tomatoes - although I don't eat them now - but I hated tinned plum tomatoes, in fact I loathed them with all my being.

Then I watched as he ate a meat dish, a cottage pie, made with tomatoes and watched as he reached for his handkerchief to wipe his nose.

Now I know other family members who hate tomatoes. So perhaps tomato-aversion is the sign that could help us trace the genetic course of this malady.

If you go back to the discussion on Samter's Triad, that was when I realised that I had non-allergenic rhinitis, otherwise known as a chronic stuffy nose. It's not classic hay fever, it's "non-allergenic" but it's the same sort of condition.

Now that's probably not on my medical notes. No doctor ever attempted to list all the mild symptoms that are linked to this condition. In Britain they're interested in the major symptoms and good for them. We'd all be hypochondriacs otherwise. I did tell the consultant that I suffered from "summer colds" as a child but he dismissed that, pointing out that as I grew up on a farm it was extremely unlikely I'd develop hay fever.

In a week or two I'll have my last appointment with a dietician and then it will be back to the GP. The level of GP knowledge of this - and the quality of their notes - extends to "how is your asthma?". I don't have asthma - yet - and I hope to God I don't get it.

But as the latest reports on hay fever and stroke point out, chronic hay fever can no longer be considered a "benign" condition. The same applies here - perhaps the best thing to do would be to go onto statins as you are now allowed to self-medicate with them and apparently they are the wonder drug that will prevent heart disease, stroke etc. Let's hope they don't contain salicylate.

Onions!

I've just endured a week without Montelukast and ended up back on the anti-histamines. It wasn't obvious what it was, maybe ice cream or just an accumulation of junk food, but by Monday by gums were hurting, my tongue was swelling and my skin was starting to blossom with red spots.

Anti-histamines controlled it but they are not as effective as Montelukast. And the one-a-days may be sold as "non-drowsy" but I don't believe it. A doctor friend of mine says the effect is like a hangover. If you doze, you sink into a deep sleep and struggle out of it.

So by Monday night I got round to emailing my doctors' surgery for the repeat prescription. I was told it would take three days to be ready so this morning I popped in and collected it. Over lunch I took the prescription to a city centre chemist and they told me about an interesting scheme they have. They've kept my details and if I telephone them they will make all the arrangements to organise the repeat prescription. All I would have to do would be to call and collect it. I'm in two minds because I like to support the local pharmacist. However it always takes a few minutes to get the prescription ready. That's fine after a GP appointment when I've probably set aside at least an hour - but not monthly. Straight after picking up the pills, I took one.

So to onions. I was at a meeting at lunchtime and sandwiches were provided. I spotted a plain cheese sandwich and bit into it, only to realise it was actually cheese and onion. It's embarrassing when your nose starts running and you start choking during a meeting - as that is what happened. By mid-afternoon my right eye was hurting and my gums and lips tingling. Thankfully later on the drug kicked in and I am all right tonight. I had fish sauce and pasta for dinner to help calm things down. It's a reminder that onions can be particularly lethal.

Mushrooms

Tonight we had cuiche made with cheese, spinach and mushrooms. Mushrooms can vary enormously in salicylate level, so my dietician told me, and it all depends where they are grown.

I've tended to assume that commercial mushrooms will be grown in compost - which is likely to be rich in salicylate. Farm grown mushrooms, on the other hand, will grow in grass and animal manure and tend to be okay.

Well I continued to chance it, despite my experience over the weekend. I ate the cuiche and my throat swelled, my lips tingled and now I'm sitting here feeling as if I'm about to get a cold. It's not a cold of course, it's more like hay fever or what they call non-allergenic rhinitis.

Interesting the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has just released a report showing that most people put up with summer colds without realising they are probably hay fever. That used to happen to me except it probably was not hay fever, it was salicylate hypersensitivity.

Just when you think...

I really thought I was getting this under control. I've massively increased the amount of fish in my diet and I'm taking montelukast quite regularly after getting a repeated prescription from the GP. That means I can simply email the practice to get my next prescription note - although I have to go for an appointment in August to ensure there are no side-effects.

I've even once or twice created fish and tomato pasta sauces at home. So that's tomato back in the diet for the first time in nearly two years. Delicious!

Then last night the family brought home some Chinese spare ribs from the supermarket. I've avoided them up to now because I have no idea what the sweet sauce they are coated with is made from. But I thought I would chance it. Delicious!

Today for pudding we had a chocolate gateau and a raspberry pavlova. The gateau went and everyone was having second helpings from the pavlova. So I got a clean knife and cut away some of the meringue bit. There was just a smidgeon of raspberry on it. Not bad!

Now I'm sitting here with a desperately uncomfortable sore throat and a tingling tongue. Maybe it's a cold coming but more likely it's back to square one, I'm afraid.