I am 54 and have had a strange ailment for months. My nose gets stuffy, often when I’m outside; usually left, sometimes right. After a while it opens briefly and then closes again. I’ve already been to the otolaryngologist for it, but nothing was wrong then. How do I get rid of this?
The opening and closing of the nose is caused by the widening and narrowing of small blood vessels, which form a kind of cavernous bodies. That system is controlled by stimuli such as cold, moisture, odors, irritants, viruses, allergies and emotions. But there is also a kind of automatism in it: if you pay attention, you will notice that one side of the nose almost always lets more air through than the other. That is to allow one side to recover from drying of the mucosa. Once this has caught your attention, it can become an obsession. Kind of like a piece of clothing that doesn’t fit right – you keep feeling it. So try not to think about it for a while, maybe that will help.
Control system out of balance
Many elderly people find that they have a runny nose much more quickly, especially in the cold than when they were younger. As you get older, the regulation system in the nose starts to function less well. You can ‘adjust’ a stuffy nose with a nasal spray that contains xylometazoline: an adrenaline-like substance that causes a strong vasoconstriction. Unfortunately, it often comes back worse, because you bring your own control system further out of balance. That’s okay with a cold that goes away after a week, but in the long term it’s a bad idea. On medical prescription you can also get spray with anti-inflammatory corticosteroids. You could ask your doctor if you can try this.
