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Dr. Shah:
We’re talking about allergies today and allergies is not something I specifically deal with, but I tangentially deal with in my office because I’m dealing with the nose and almost everyone’s nose is going to have inflammation and irritation and things of that nature. And so many patients ask me, um, you know, why do I have a runny nose, um, either before or after rhinoplasty? Um, what can I do to improve my symptoms? And allergies are super common. About two thirds of the population have some sort of allergic rhinitis. And if you look at rhinitis in general, rhinitis means inflammation of the nose. I think almost everyone’s going to have some sort of inflammation. So we’re going to talk about some things we call, um, it’ll like little life hacks or biohacks that I recommend for my patients to do, uh, either patients who are post-surgery or pre-surgery, or just anyone with inflammation in their nose. And these are things that we have found that help, uh, with your nose. So I’m joined here today by UNAM and UNAM. We are going to be just asking some questions. So you asked me the questions and if you have questions along the way too, like you’ll be like the regular listener or viewer. Okay. Sounds good.
Speaker 2:
All right. First question is how can I tell if I’m having issues with allergies versus a cold versus say COVID
Dr. Shah:
Okay. So that’s a great question and a super relevant question right now, because we’re worried about Colts COVID and, um, analogies. And, uh, so the first thing is, um, you know, with COVID, uh, there are specific symptoms, you know, kind of indicative of that. And so if you have a fever in general, uh, you might have a coal and you might have COVID, but you’re less likely to have allergies as the primary cause of that fever. So if you have a fever, you’re not feeling well, you feel sick, typically feeling sick, just kind of overall general malaise. You might have a cold, or you might have COVID. Um, if you lose your sense of smell, will, all of those can check the box. If you lose your sense of taste, all of those can check the box. If you have a cough, all of those can check the box.
Dr. Shah:
So in general, if you’re not feeling well, meaning like you feel sick, you have a little great fever, um, and these are symptoms you normally don’t have. Um, you probably, you have to think of yourself of having some sort of viral infection. Um, if you have allergies and you say, Hey, guess what? I’m having a runny nose. And I always lose my sense of smell and taste. Well, more than likely you have allergies, but if you’re not certain right now, there’s a lot of these rapid testing, um, items available COVID, uh, PCR, um, nasal swamps. Uh, the big caveat we have with these tests is they’re not super accurate. Um, and, um, you know, we have some patients who, uh, you know, sometimes they’re clearly, um, you know, clearly someone who may have had COVID, um, you know, you’re going to powder repeat that test. Uh, but if you’re not certain, you can always get a COVID test, but just be aware that they’re at best, even though they say 90% accuracy, they’re not really that accurate. Okay.
Speaker 2:
Okay. All right. Um, next question. Can my sinus problems, because by my allergies,
Dr. Shah:
For sure, uh, your son has problems can be caused by allergies because allergies, what they do. Um, most people who have allergies and UNAM, you have allergies sometimes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I have like daily allergies and then I have allergies because of my cat.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. So we’re going to dive into what things we can do. Um, so can my sinus problems, and do you ever get sinus pain or pressure?
Speaker 2:
No pain. A little pressure, but
Dr. Shah:
Yeah. And let’s think about the anatomy here. So when you have allergies, what happens is your inside of your nose? It swells up. Sometimes you try to blow your nose, but nothing comes out correct. Uh, and so we have these things called sinuses and the sentences are located. You have these little empty spaces, kind of above our eyes, not where our brains out there are different spaces in that, um, in our cheeks and kind of throughout our nose. And they can actually cause discomfort if they’re blocked up and what’s going to block it up inflammation. So if you have inflammation from either allergies or the things you can have problems or issues with your sinuses and that sinus, um, uh, it’s basically was caused by the inflammation from the allergy.
Speaker 2:
Okay. All right. Can a rhinoplasty fix or cure my allergies?
Dr. Shah:
Super common question. So someone comes in and says, I’m sick of having this runny nose. I’m sick of being allergic to dust. Let’s do surgery to fix it. But as we know, um, you know, if your body let’s say with your cat, uh, what’s happening with the cat is your whole body. It’s not just your nose, but that’s the part that we can manifest. Um, it’s your nose, your eyes, maybe get a little runny. So every little cell, when the allergen comes near it, it’s going to create a release of histamine and histamine causes. That’s why we take these pills called anti-histamines. Um, and all of that’s going to create this swelling and discomfort. And your body’s having a reaction to that just because you do surgery, the surgery does not prevent you from having allergies. Okay. You’re still going to be allergic to it. It might give you a little bit more room in your airway. So when it does swell up, um, you won’t have quite as severe symptoms with your allergies.
Speaker 2:
Okay. Um, I, another question, um, is it safe to take allergy medication every day?
Dr. Shah:
Uh, it depends on the type of allergy medication. So there’s different types of allergy medications in general, if you’re taking allergy medications every day, um, let’s just kind of dial things back and say, okay, what can I do to treat my allergies? If you take a medication every day, common sense tells us that it’s going to become less and less effective. Okay. And what causes our allergies. So in your case, your cat, my cat. So let’s try to figure out what’s causing your allergy. So we have your cat and where does your cat sleep? He sleeps
Speaker 2:
In the living room. I kick them out of my room.
Dr. Shah:
Kick them out of your room. How about during the day? During
Speaker 2:
The day I leave my room open, so he’s like in and out.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. So we’re going to talk about some things that you can do to do that. And do you have anything running, um, as of a month, let’s say one month ago, did you have any air filters going in your room or just kind of let it run? Just
Speaker 2:
Kinda, yeah, let him, let him be.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. Um, so let’s go, these are kind of a list we’ve kind of compiled. So I’m gonna kind of go through each one of these things. So we’re gonna pretend on him is kind of this classic patient, um, actually unintended procedure done on her nose. She has account and you have a runny nose right now.
Speaker 2:
Um, it’s not too bad, but it is a little bit congested.
Dr. Shah:
All right. So just for patients say, so, uh, so these are some tips you can do to kind of mitigate your symptoms. So we know the allergies are caused in honor’s case, most likely by her cat, but it just because you’re allergic to your count doesn’t mean you’re not allergic to other things. Yeah. Um, so let’s kind of go through our list. So first list is when do you wash your hair?
Speaker 2:
Uh, I wash my hair every other day,
Dr. Shah:
But is it in the morning or at night? It’s at night. At night. Okay. So washing your hair at night is actually a better thing than washing your hair during the day. Um, and the reason that is, is because during the day we’re getting all sorts of stuff in it. You’re walking outside, we’re getting dander and pollen. And then when you sleep, you’re probably putting your head on your pillow and all that dust and dander, even though you weren’t exposed to it directly, it’s going to go right into your face. And you’re going to swell. And most people who wake up in the morning, do you ever wake up puffy in the morning?
Speaker 2:
A little bit. Sometimes not all
Dr. Shah:
The time. I look like a marshmallow, but you want to avoid that puffiness. So that, that that’s really important to kind of avoid that morning puppy puffiness. And so that’s why we’re trying to do things to kind of mitigate that. So, okay. Uh, Washington, who’s going to be helpful. Um, animals, animals in the bedroom. We don’t want them in our bedroom, even if you’re not allergic to the animal. Most common thing I sit here from patient is like, you know, I have a hypoallergenic dog, so he can go anywhere. The problem with that dog is just like our hair. What’s that dog gonna do during the day. And, but what you’re going to do, if he’s going outside and all
Speaker 2:
That stuff, get dirty and roll around
Dr. Shah:
Dust and pollen. So even if you’re not allergic to your dog, you might be allergic to what your dog encounters during the day, which can be Dustin pollen and all those types of things that we might be able to drink too. So that’s why it’s a bad idea to have that dog in your room. And, um, I know there’s a lot of dogs. I have a dog as well, uh, but it’s not something I have in my room. Uh, the second thing we talked about getting your room ready. So we’re doing the things to kind of avoid things. Um, how often do you wash your sheets?
Speaker 2:
I would say every couple of weeks, but I could be a
Dr. Shah:
Lot better. And then do you use hot water, warm water or cold water? Warm water. Okay. So here’s where we want to think about why do we wash our sheets? Well, one thing is we want fresh sheets, they smell great, but the biggest thing is that when we’re sleeping, we release all of these little skin cells. It’s kind of disgusting, but maybe kind of good too, but in our bed, our dust mites, no matter what you are, who you are, dust mites are there. So unless you wash your sheets on hot, hot water, you’re not probably killing all the dust mites, um, kind of a corollary to that is how often do you change your pillow?
Speaker 2:
Ooh, probably. No, I do. It’s just maybe like once every couple of months,
Dr. Shah:
That’s actually not bad though. Every two months is pretty good. I would say like four months, most people get their pills sometimes for new years. And again, those can be laid in with dust mites, even mattresses get Laden with dust mites. So sometimes you can put mattress covers and all these types of things together can be important to kind of, again, that’s another thing that, um, lots of people aren’t even aware that they’re allergic to them. Yeah. Okay. So we have the hot water sheets. Um, and then, um, how about when you go to your house, are you kind of a shoes where I’m wherever you want to, or shoes at the door? They stay at the door. Yeah. And same thing with the dock concept. You know, if your dog is going around and going in, um, and you’re going outside, you want to leave your shoes at the door because you can, you’re going to track all these things like dirt and dust and pollen and all those types of things around your house. Uh, do you smoke no marijuana? No. Are you sure Nick bring out the CFC. How about hookah?
Speaker 2:
Uh, yeah, I do so
Dr. Shah:
Hookah. Okay. So these things can actually exacerbate your allergies, make them worse because you’ve got, you’re going to create inflammation inside your nose. Um, so, um, it’s one of those things and the way they work is our nose is full of Celia and Celia kind of like protect us, remove all these little dust and particles outside of our nose. But because of those, um, uh, when you smoke your Sylvia, stop moving. So these things that normally get cleared from our nose, they stay in there. So we want to kind of avoid hookah and smoking if you’re going to do, um, you know, something with that route of CBD or, um, the cannaboid, uh, maybe do that from an oil oil version of that. If you’re going to smoke, maybe go towards something where the nicotine, I’m not a big fan of any of that, but, um, whenever it works and, uh, but try to avoid the smoke aspect in general, smoking is the worst way you can ingest anything. Um, tell me about your diet, my diet.
Speaker 2:
Um, I would like to think I’m pretty healthy. Um, but I do love junk food.
Dr. Shah:
All right. So junk phone is going to be one of those things. So the issue with junk food is it’s going to be part of that inflammatory diet. And there’s two components in the inflammatory diet. You’re going to have sugar, flour and processed issues and product. The processing of foods is what really causes us to have inflammation as well. Some people just from eating this alone will notice that they get inflammation. So that’s a factor that by cutting that out of your diet, many people just feel better. They feel cleaner and things that you can do. So that’s helpful. Um, how about, uh, fruits and vegetables? Do you go for the organic or non-organic or
Speaker 2:
Try to get organic if the grocery store? Yeah.
Dr. Shah:
And the big thing with organic is you’re dealing again with pesticides and herbicides, um, with the non-organic and the problem with that is that can lead to more issues with, um, inflammation in your body. Um, so we’re gonna talk about specific ways of kind of fighting that, um, I’m facing anything else. How about, where do you live? Do you live in an apartment and an old one, a new one?
Speaker 2:
Um, it’s not that old it’s maybe about, I’m going to say like the building is probably eight years old.
Dr. Shah:
Any issues with mold smells water down with water spots anywhere. Nope. Great job. And we want to make sure that mold isn’t super common salt cause of inflammation, inflammation in our body inflammation in our nose. So we always want to check for those types of things as well. Um, and I think, um, uh, how about in that diet? There’s some certain foods called histamine rich foods. Um, and I always have to look these up, so I’ll, I’ll pull these up right now, but in that histamine, rich food, uh, thing, um, foods that contain histamine. So we’re trying to avoid the release of histamine, but some people feel that, um, you know, certain foods like fermented foods, um, uh, alcohol avocados, eggplant, spinach, processors, smoke meats, shellfish and cheese all have, um, a lot of histamine in it. So if you’re noticing these, um, severe allergy symptoms, uh, by giving your body less fuel or less histamine, uh, your responses can be a little bit less, any of those check marks where you eat a lot
Speaker 2:
Of avocados. So maybe I should cut back on that.
Dr. Shah:
Yeah. And again, these are all things you can try. How about fermented foods at all or not really? Not really. It plants spinach. Shellfish. Spinach.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Um, seafood. Yeah.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. So, and again, it doesn’t mean that in the seafood thing, it’s really, the shellfish component is the part, um, so kind of figuring out what to do. So some people are like, okay, so I’m going to avoid all these things. I’m going to wash my sheets. I’m going to change my pillowcases, but I still have allergies. This is super frustrating. Now what do I do? Okay. So the first thing is most of the time with allergies, the allergies that release we’re talking about come from the air. So the obvious statement is let’s clean our air, let’s monitor our air. Um, there’s a monitor called, um, IQ, visual IQ airs. When I have in my house, I don’t get to think of responders or anything from them. Um, but, um, I, I monitor my air quality and you can kind of tell how the overall air quality is in your room.
Dr. Shah:
Um, just by looking at the number and it’ll tell you how many parts per, um, per thousand are actually in, uh, say it’s parts per million. There’s, it’s called air visual IQ air. And it uses us AQI as their other, as their symptom is their sign. And so it’ll, it’ll actually measure your air quality index and the air quality index right now in Chicago. It’s a 46. Uh, but in my bedroom right now, it’s four. Um, so, uh, you know, so what’s happening, how do I change that air quality? So here’s where having some sort of test to find out what your air quality is like and what you can do to change that is going to be helpful. Um, so obviously the first sign that people say is this buying air filter. Um, half the air filters are the most common that people talk about.
Dr. Shah:
They can really kind of, uh, clean the air on a, on a, you know, beyond, um, microscopic level, um, can actually help with, uh, viral particles. Uh, the problem with epic alters though is when most people buy an air filter, what do they do with that air filter? They don’t change it as often as they should. They don’t change it. So if you actually look at that, what you’re doing is you’re just putting air through refilter there and it actually connects exactly. It’s actually kind of disgusting. So you have to change the filters on that. So one of the main problems with most air filters is that most people don’t change the air filter or they don’t know how. Um, and so, uh, w what you have to do is usually just take the air, filter out, buy a new one, and put it in there.
Dr. Shah:
And that’s actually where most companies make money on is on the air filter, not on the, um, um, uh, not, not in the filtering device itself. Um, in my house, I use NFC in the office. I use something called an air dog horrible name, but, uh, uh, essentially what it is it’s, you can just flush the filters out and they have three different layers of that. They also have some items that attract, um, you know, the viruses and bacteria and, uh, what you want to look at, especially if you’re worried about things like COVID is how small, um, are the parts that it can actually filter. And what is it doing to kind of actually filter these areas? So, um, uh, I like air dog, and there’s a couple of other ones out there. Um, what’s the other one that, oh, molecule, uh, molecules and other one that people like, um, the problem with that one, again, super expensive filter.
Dr. Shah:
I think the filters on that, like just a loner, like $200 or $300, they’re kind of small. Um, and, uh, they’ve done some airflow studies where that one may not filter errors well, when they did the cut of the study on that, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good product and I have no experience with it, but that’s another product that a lot of people talk about as molecule. Um, I like air dog because I don’t want to have with 20 filters. I could probably go through them like every month. Um, and it doesn’t matter what filter system you use, as long as you’re monitoring your air quality. And so, um, and, uh, you’re kind of a little aside here, you know, when I, um, during the summer, um, I w whenever I wake up stuffy, if I look at my air quality in my room, I mean, like a month, my breathing was horrible.
Dr. Shah:
I looked at my air quality, um, when it’s bad, it’s normally about 10 or 15 or 20 in my room. It was 1,798, which is like, yeah, crazy hot. But that was the middle of ragweed. Also during that time where the fi forest fires in California. So all of that air quality means you’re going to wake up stuffy and saying why my allergy medication didn’t work, but before we even get there, let’s monitor our air quality. Okay. So air quality is a big thing that we don’t want to overlook. Um, are there things we can do we started doing that is we talked about avoiding inflammatory foods. Um, common things aside from the inflammatory foods is dairy and gluten. So it’s worth going off of dairy and gluten to see if you respond. And if you have, um, you know, less allergies cause this food allergy thing is very, very difficult to test. There’s not actually a, a test you can do for that. Um, aside from that, um, other treatments you can go into, um, are going to be, uh, do you ever try essential oils?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. I have like a little diffuser in my room.
Dr. Shah:
What oils do you put in there?
Speaker 2:
I like lemon grass and lavender, but I don’t know if they do,
Dr. Shah:
Uh, if you’re supposed to treat allergies, eucalyptus, and peppermint or two that they talk about. Um, so supposedly that opens up your airway. We actually have it for our patients post rhino. We’re not doing it now because of COVID. Uh, but post rhino, we like eucalyptus because it kind of opens up your airway a little bit. So that’s something you can consider using at night to kind of help with that, uh, and help with, um, allergies, um, other things out there. Um, aside from that, we have the low histamine diet. Um, some people talk about local honey, um, and the way that works is go to a farmer’s market. Don’t get the honey. If you live in Illinois, get your honey from Washington or vice versa. And the reason is that because the bees are going to actually collect all of those things on a microscopic level, and it’s going to go into the honey.
Dr. Shah:
So if you take the small amount of local honey, theoretically, it can build up your, um, uh, resistance to these allergies and you can have less of a response to that. Um, and then on that list as well, some people talk about, um, uh, supporting your liver and people are like, why would I want to support my liver for allergies? And the reason is because when you’re dealing with inflammation, your liver really has to go into high gear. And this is especially with herbicides and pesticides and things of that nature. So that’s something you can kind of look at and say, Hey, let’s really get my liver into good health. So things that are rich in glutosiome liver, supporting, um, types of, um, uh, uh, supplements are specially helpful. So really trying to do that. And that’s also goes into that thing of alcohol, not only is it histamine rich, it can affect your liver and actually make your allergies worse.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. Um, and then kind of some, uh non-medication if you’re gonna go there and we’ll go into the medication a little bit, uh, there’s five things that people have talked about that actually have some, some sort of evidence that it may work with allergies. So if you said, I don’t want to take a medication, I don’t wanna do a medication daily. I’ve tried all these things and I’m still having some inflammation. Um, now we get to the next step. So on that list, we have butterbur failure com that’s P H a E L U M pretense, P R a T E N S E pycnogenol in Kirsten. All of these curious team is Q U E R S Q U R C T I N. All of these have some evidence in the literature. All of these are readily available on Amazon to botanicals. I don’t have a special specific area or personality.
Dr. Shah:
I’d like to just go to someplace where you trust, where you get your thing. Um, it also available, I believe all of them are available at whole foods. Uh, these are natural ways of, um, uh, treating your allergies. And, um, you may notice an improvement. You may not notice an improvement with that. I think that the data on this is mixed. So if you don’t want to take an anti-histamine and don’t want to take nasal steroids, which we’ll talk about next, um, it’s worth trying these sort of, uh, natural, natural remedies. And so all of those elements can help with your allergies on some level. Um, uh, I don’t have severe enough allergies where I actually don’t like to take any medications. So I’m kind of on that phase one where my allergies are basically in the, the sheet washing, um, no shoes inside the house, which again, sometimes with relatives, you come in with, you know, shoes full of dirt and they’re walking around my house.
Dr. Shah:
Um, I don’t like that idea of it. Um, and, um, don’t play that to my face. Um, and, um, and a part of it is just really keeping my air on too. Um, and so if all that’s together, I’m usually going to be pretty on top of my allergies that, so I don’t have a ton of experience myself with any of the natural pathic remedies, but from talking to some patients, who’ve taken them. I think there’s a mixed bag on that. Some help, some don’t. Um, if we’re going to step beyond that, now we’re going to go into the medication route and the medication route is going to be kind of the traditional allopathic treatment for allergy. So we’ve done the avoidance and kind of avoidance with an extra layer on that level is going to be, anti-histamines the reason patients don’t like to take anti-histamines and you’ve taken them. Why don’t you like to take them?
Speaker 2:
Um, sometimes I just feel like they don’t even work to be honest, like, I’ll take one and then it’ll work for a little while. And then throughout the day, I’ll like, I’ll get my allergies.
Dr. Shah:
Um, and there might be some overuse of that. Sometimes you get some resistance to that. Um, sometimes you could still have so much, um, exposure to other things that you’re still your body’s still releasing histamine. Um, and then the other area with that is going to be, um, uh, you know, other factor, most patients don’t like it because they can feel a little sleepy too, unless yeah.
Speaker 2:
Um, a little bit like, just like a little bit,
Dr. Shah:
So I don’t like it because again, I feel like it I’m super, super aware of how I feel cognitively. And so if I have any decline in the way I feel, um, or I don’t want to take it. And so for me, because my symptoms are so mild, I don’t like taking anti-histamines that being said, they’re kind of the tried and trued, uh, way of treating allergies. Um, and there’s kind of a selective and non-selective type of anti-histamine, uh, there’s Benadryl, which is the old fashioned one, which is kind of a non-selective anti-histamine just stops everything. That’s um, uh, an H uh, H one it’s basically a non-selective H one blocker, and then you have your, um, things like Alegra and Zyrtec. Those are going to be your, um, selective anti-histamine, um, uh, treatments. And basically what I mean, they selected, but it doesn’t go into your brain and makes you less sleepy.
Dr. Shah:
Some people get sleepy with Benadryl, actually, there’s surprisingly a number of people who actually get wired with Benadryl. Um, but most people get sleepy with Benadryl. Um, great way to keep your dog asleep. Again, look to have that reaction great way if you’re having difficulties sleep, one of the most, uh, mild and safest way, especially if you’re taking lots of medications, which I’m not, but if you have someone who’s an older person who can’t sleep safe way of doing that. Yeah. Um, and then sometimes there’s the D component, not with Benadryl, but with Alegra D and Zyrtec D the D is a D congestion. You have to be really careful if your heart races. I’m not sure if you’ve taken a deed before.
Speaker 2:
I usually take Zyrtec. Um, but for me, since I’m so small, I take like the child version of,
Dr. Shah:
Did you ever take the D version? Yeah. Do you notice that your heart races at that or no,
Speaker 2:
I don’t think I’ve noticed that. No.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. And the reason the D works is it basically tries to vasoconstrict your blood vessels. The problem with D is that sometimes when you’re vasoconstricting things, um, with a decongestant component of it, sometimes you’ll get kind of, um, some resistance to that either as you get that resistance to that Zyrtec D uh, what’s going to happen is, um, your body feels like it doesn’t wear and last long enough and long enough, um, the number one treatment that, which most people don’t do for allergies, most people try to just take pop a pill is nasal steroid. And, um, there’s a lot of misconceptions about what a nasal steroid is. So, first of all, you can’t take nasal steroids and get really strong. They’re not those type of steroids. Nasal steroids are basically for inflammation. They don’t treat your allergy, but what they do is they treat the inflammation that comes from your allergy. Um, and, uh, you’ve ever used a nasal steroids, like a nasal spray.
Speaker 2:
Yes. Which one? Um, I used what’s the green top. Yeah.
Dr. Shah:
Okay. So how did you use it when you had it? Um,
Speaker 2:
I did one spray in each nostril,
Dr. Shah:
Just sprayed in size, right, right inside. And the biggest issue with that is, um, most people use it incorrectly. So kind of the tips to use Flonase, first of all, we’re not trying to de inflame our septum. The septum is the middle part of our nose. That actually, we don’t want the spray to hit that because if the spray hits that you might get a nosebleed, I’m not sure if you’ve ever got a nose bleed. And, um, what you want to do is actually when you put the spray inside your nose, you want to aim it towards your ear. And that’s because there’s two little structures there’s called the turbulence and the turbinates are what causes most of the inflammation with allergies. Um, so that’s the part. If you put this brain there and you can actually do decongest your nose, um, that misconception with nasal steroids that they work right away, they don’t, it takes them up to four to six weeks to actually start to work.
Dr. Shah:
This is that gradual, the inflammation, the inflammation, the inflammation, and this is opposed to something called Afrin and Afrin works right away. So people will love that spray the problem with Afrin. What, why don’t we, why don’t we do the quick fix? Because the problem with Afrin is if you use this spray, it works less effectively. The first time it works 12 hours in six hours and four hours and two hours in one hour and 30 minutes, and people get addicted to it. There’s actually a medical condition called rhinitis Medicam and TOSA and Afrin can actually destroy the lining of your nose. If you use it once or twice, you’re going to be okay. But if you use it every day, multiple times a day, you are at risk for putting a hole in the lining of your nose. Uh, so you want to be very, very careful with that.
Dr. Shah:
Um, so Flonase is safe as long as you point it towards your ear. Um, kind of some other tips before you put Flonase in your nose, um, you might want to kind of get all this stuff out. So I recommend most patients blow their nose. If you have nasal sailing, you can blow that in to get all that stuff out and then use the spray. So it’s more effective. Don’t blow the flow NACE right out afterwards. Let that sit in there. Cause that’s the medication you want that to sit in your nose. So before blowing your nose again, really let that sit in there. Um, how does it taste the is good or horrible? Um, it’s not too bad. Um, I hate it. I’ve used it really bad tastes. So if you’re going to eat breakfast or dinner, do it after your meal, not before your meal, otherwise it kind of changes the taste of that.
Dr. Shah:
I’m kind of pretty taste sensitive with that. So at the times I’m using Flonase, um, I would say it’s probably better to do that afterwards. Um, and then you can kind of up your dose. You can do two sprays per side, twice a day. And again, once you are kind of through that allergy part, so for your SEL allergic to ragweed, which is kind of more of a fall thing, um, versus grasses, which is more of a spring thing. Um, if you know your seasons, that’s when you might want to put on that extra arm of an anti-histamine or putting on a Flonase. And then when you’re out of your busy time of allergy, when you’re gonna be more likely to be effected, try taking those arms off and going with just kind of the minimal therapies like we’re talking about and the avoidance. Um, so I think that’s all my tips for allergies. Um, one other tip, which I think is kind of interesting is if you do get allergies and you notice there’s pressure in your nose, there’s a little thing you can do to get rid of that. But someone talks about that can actually help improve that besides nasal sailing and besides nasal steroids, you know what it is, what does that give you a hint? [inaudible]
Dr. Shah:
know what it is. I’ll give you one more hand. You’re scaring me now. So what it is is if you actually hum people find that humming actually vibrates your sinuses. So some people will find that. Uh, so in some of the meditation chance, especially things that are heavy involves, you can actually vibrate your sinuses and actually break that up and break up some of the things that are in your sinuses. It doesn’t mean people are going to the hospital and say, I want you to hum Mary had a little lamb 50 times, but, um, it is something to be said that some of the meditation chance they do use that. And, um, even in the, uh, for our Catholic patients out there, the hail Mary has a lot of vowels in it. Um, so, um, you know, again, can maybe, um, talk about why those signs of his might clear up a little bit if you’re going to church.
Dr. Shah:
So, all right. All right. So a lot of stuff here on allergies, we just kind of, uh, touch the tip of the iceberg here. Uh, but, uh, kind of a big point over here is have a healthy lifestyle, um, really avoid these things that aren’t healthy for us because sometimes it makes that full circle on us. Uh, try some of these tips before jumping into the medications. And if you’re not doing great with those tips, um, jump into the medication route and if you’re still not doing good, then that’s where we have doctors who specialize in allergies called allergist, and they can run a panel of tests on you. Um, they don’t test everything, uh, but what they can do is find out, uh, what you might be allergic to and talking to some other therapies, including allergy shots, which will hopefully, uh, an allergist on our podcast. Thanks for listening. And, uh, if there’s any more comments, just let them live in below that’s [inaudible].
