Chronic rhinitis does not hurt, but it makes our lives unnecessarily difficult. Where the permanent cold comes from and which remedies help gently!
A stuffy nose is not dangerous and does not hurt. This is true, but sufferers suffer much more than friends and colleagues believe. If you can't breathe through your nose, you have to keep your mouth open all the time. This dries out the mucous membranes, prevents restful sleep, and roughens the larynx and voice. Also, chronic rhinitis makes people susceptible to infections and leads to constant exhaustion.
Continuous rhinitis is therefore not a trifle, but can make you ill - and even be a sign of another illness. If your nose is stuffy for more than a week, you should see a doctor.
What can be the cause of a chronic cold?
Not in every case is an infection the cause of the sniffles. These reasons can also cause discomfort:
Allergy
In every second case, an allergic infection is responsible if the nose is blocked or just continuously running - and there is now a wide range of treatment options for this: For example, one can omit the allergy-causing substance, carefully desensitize it or slow down the body's allergic reaction with the help of medication.
Close self-observation can help: When do the symptoms start and when are they at their worst? While hay fever symptoms wax and wane seasonally, the nose of an animal hair or house dust allergy is blocked all year round. Does it swell up the most after a night in bed? Or whenever you have the house cat on your lap?
Occupational rhinitis
Do the sniffles subside on vacations and weekends? Then you may be suffering from an occupational allergy. An example: hairdressers can sooner or later develop allergic reactions to hair dye. Even if such an allergy "only" manifests itself in a blocked nose, it should be treated by an allergist. This is because an allergy-related gradual inflammation can weaken the immune system, lead to inflammation of the paranasal sinuses (sinusitis), or, in the worst case - if left untreated - end in allergic asthma.
Aspirin
What many cold sufferers do not know: Some medicines can trigger a stuffy nose as a side effect, for example, the active ingredient ASA (aspirin), antihypertensive drugs, and some hormones.
Nasal spray
You may also just need to stop taking your cold medicine. Most often, permanently stuffy noses are caused by nasal sprays or drops. This is because if sufferers use them to combat their symptoms for more than a few days, the nasal mucosa gets used to them - and the nasal spray no longer has a decongestant effect. That is why nasal spray is never a permanent solution!
Chronic sinusitis
A blocked nose is particularly unpleasant and persistent if it is caused by chronic sinusitis. Here, a ping-pong effect can occur: Along with the cold (rhinitis), the mucous membrane lining the sinuses also becomes inflamed. The swollen drainage passages in the nose can cause chronic inflammation, which in turn affects the nasal mucosa.
Stress
But it can also be worthwhile to think about your own life situation: Could stress, anxiety, or grief, for example, have caused you to need a time out? After all, who hasn't had enough in a figurative sense?
Chronic rhinitis: these remedies help
- Saline solution
The swollen nasal mucosa needs moisture and the mucus should be loosened. The best and gentlest way to do this is with a 0.9 percent saline solution. It is available sterile and expensive in pharmacies, but it is very easy to prepare yourself: Dissolve a pinch of table salt in a 0.2-liter glass of lukewarm water. Boiling is not necessary.
Pour the solution into an atomizer and hold it up to your nose. Put your head back a little and spray the liquid into the nostril several times while inhaling. Rinse several times a day. Daily nasal rinsing can even prevent colds.
- Steam baths and rinses
In addition to antibiotics, which are appropriate for purulent inflammations, ear, nose, and throat doctors recommend mucolytic medications such as Soledum and Gelomyrtol forte, ACC (helps only if plenty of liquid is drunk with it), and rinses with lukewarm saline solution. Warm, not too hot steam baths (for example with chamomile flowers) have a decongestant effect. If the nose is completely closed, you can take a few minutes before - sparingly dosed - nasal drops - so that the dissolving steam can penetrate into all corners.
- Nasal sprays - used sparingly
Decongestant nasal sprays and drops have saved the night for many a cold sufferer: one spray in each nostril - and breathing is free. However, the active ingredients, known as "sympathomimetics," are not harmless: after about a week of continuous use, the mucous membrane changes, and the spray has to be taken more frequently and in higher and higher doses to be able to breathe through the nose at all.
With years of abuse - and this is not uncommon - the mucous membrane can be damaged forever. Decongestant nasal drops should therefore never be used for more than a few days at a time and not as a preventive measure. (By the way, the concentration for children is often sufficient to treat adults).
- Home remedies for all cases!
By the way, home remedies are always a good choice for infections: Here you can find home remedies for colds, home remedies for sore throats, and home remedies for coughs. We also explain where a strong cough and a dry, irritating cough come from in the first place.
When is surgery necessary?
Using a scalpel against rhinitis - that sounds like shooting at a sparrow with a cannon. But in some cases, only surgery can clear the nose: when a crooked nasal septum or chronic polyps obstruct breathing in and out, for example.
Polyps in adults are benign growths in the nasal cavity. As a rule, they cause little or no discomfort. In the worst case, however, they can completely fill the nasal cavity, and then surgery can provide relief. However, the success of such an operation is not always permanent, because polyps can grow back.
In the case of a crooked nasal septum, surgery only makes sense if the curved or broken septum is really the cause of the constant rhinitis. And that is not always the case: After all, the nasal septum is not completely straight in around two-thirds of all Europeans, but by no means do all of them have complaints because of it.
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