cold or allergies?

[eirias]

This must be everyone's favorite question at this time of year.

OK, so: I've been sneezing for about 2 days now, and all the fun stuff that comes with it (minus the itchy eyes). The onset was pretty sudden and wasn't linked to any obvious change in my environment, other than "it stopped raining." I don't have much in the way of malaise except for the *@#$(@$& nose itself (too much sneezing would make anyone miserable) and a bit of fatigue (again, that could be the sneezing). It's OK when I sleep but bothers me again as soon as I get up. Sometimes a sneeze attack strikes me when I enter the house and sit down, sometimes when I leave it and start moving around. What's it likely to be? Cold or allergies? Any educated guesses from the doctors in the house?

By the way, did you know that when speakers of Slavic languages sneeze, they don't say "achoo," they say "atsi"?

Comments

[harleybitch.livejournal.com]

i dont know about speakers of slavic languages, but i had a spanish teacher (from spain) who said "achis"

[mokatz.livejournal.com]

Dammit, Jim, I'm a physicist, not a doctor!

You could have a mild mold allergy from all the moisture from the rain.

[marphod.livejournal.com]

The easy solution is to take an antihistamine (Allevert, Loratadine) and find out if that works.

I would guess allergies to dust, that was non-airborne when there was more wetness in the air, keeping it stuck to surfaces.

[ayb2.livejournal.com]

I agree with marphod... try the claritin or wal-itin, and see if it works. If you get headaches with all this sneezing, yellow-green snot, fevers, go see a doctor.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Not a doctor, but my guess is allergies. I'm so used to both, that I can generally tell the difference when it's me, but it's harder to tell for someone else.

Is your nose runny or stuffed up?

Do you intermittently feel like you're sneezing just to sneeze... kind of non-productively (think of the difference between a productive and non-productive cough)?

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Mostly runny, stuffy in the mornings. I'm not sure about the second question.

My gut is that it's allergies because it doesn't feel like other colds I've had; I'm just hoping I'm wrong because allergies are annoying.

It's a bit moot because it hasn't been nearly so bad today, which I guess is evidence either for a cold or for some allergen that's not omnipresent here.

[feuervogel]

The problem with that solution is that it won't truly differentiate. Antihistamines work in colds to decrease nasal runniness. Most "cough and cold" combination products include diphenhydramine (Benadryl) for that purpose.

If the other symptoms persist, then maybe it's a cold.

And a note: malaise in the medical sense tends to mean more than just "feeling lousy," and includes general achiness, drowsiness, and other flu-like symptoms.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Hm, thanks for that! I've been waking up feeling achy and unusually drowsy but it leaves during the day.

[kirin]

My allergies were really awful one day this week, and just middling the rest. It's been raining off and on at random lately, so it wouldn't surprise me to find that some mold or tree pollen density just happened to spike for a short time.