h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I need a decongestant because I haven't been able to say 'tyoons' (help you breathe more easily) for at least two weeks and it's starting to irk me. My nose has, with only a few exceptions, been continuously blocked during that time. It has also been running like Niagara Falls at times (especially in the middle of the night or when I'm at the bar ) and causing me to sneeze up to a dozen times in a row several times a day. Like I just did.

I'm really, really fed up with it, especially because there's no apparent reason for it. It's definitely not a cold because there aren't any cold symptoms. It feels like allergies (itchy eyes, itchy soft palate, tingling inside the nose) but cedar season is pretty much over and oak season hasn't started, and all the pollen reports lately have only been low to medium. I think I might not be the only one with it - a few mornings ago our local Morning Edition anchor sounded as bunged up as me, and the same day I heard at least two other people on the bus continually emptying their hooter into a handkerchief.

Tunes, Hall's Mentho Lyptus, Vic Inhaler, I don't care. I just want rid of it. Before oak season starts would be really nice.

Just go to the drugstore, put your name on the list of possible meth cooks and buy some store brand version of pseudophedrine.

What it probably is is all this air coming in from up North. It brings in pollens and "funk" that set off our allergies. It doesn't take much funk when it's funk from up North.

I haven't been too bad, but I've had some sneezing and dripping this week. And I've heard others report the burning eyes as well.

Welcome to my world.

I haven't noticed this in any previous winter, or maybe it was just very short-lived, but we have had an extraordinary number of northern cold fronts this year and there's another due tomorrow. The temperature tonight is forecast to be 67F (just shy of 20C). Sunday night - 29F/-1.7C In other words almost 40°F colder.

Are you this way all the time, Mina, or is it seasonal?

I forgot to mention (you might want to look away if you're eating) the copious quantities of Vaseline I'm having to apply, liberally, to my poor chapped nostrils.

I wonder if Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck (or any other right-wing nutters) can bring themselves to use any product whose instructions include the words 'apply liberally', like the stuff I was putting on the side of a beer tank yesterday to remove some 60-year-old glue

Right-wing nutters don't do drugs.

You could be inhaling some nasty stuff when you're sanding those stainless steel things, though.

Not with the heavy duty respirator I wear at virtually all times, including when working outside the tank, and especially yesterday when grinding lead paint off the outside of thing

My nose is pleasantly clear this morning And I think I may know why , but I'm not saying anything without further evidence and repeatable results

This (sniff) is an important even (drip) noble field of research, Gosho, and I eagerly (snort) await results. (sneeze)

And so do thousands of Columbian farmers.

I'm sure I don't know to what you are referring

Neither do I.

The nose is still relatively clear but not back to normal, so the cause probably isn't what I was thinking... which was toothpaste.

Last time I bought a new tube of toothpaste I picked up cinnamon and clove by mistake, instead of spearmint. Why anyone would want cinnamon and clove toothpaste is beyond me, but there you go. A few days after I began using it odd things started happening in my mouth. It got very sore, the way it would if it was full of mouth ulcers, but there weren't any ulcers, and my tongue felt the way it does if you've just scalded it by drinking liquid that's too hot.

I didn't make the connection at first so it went on for a week or ten days until I figured it out three or four days ago, and I really ought to have before that because I think this has happened before.

Any road up. As soon as I went back to proper toothpaste (same brand, no wacky flavours) it started to clear up... and so did my blocked nose. But it's still a little congested and I've still got that tingling which gives me the occasional sneezing fit, although not as bad as it was, so I guess the toothpaste wasn't the cause of both.

But whatever was the cause of the congestion and sneezing, it's not as bad as it was five days ago