Sniffles

Argh....for the last few days, my poor nose has been clogged to the max with phlegm - with the result that my ears have been under an extreme amount of pressure, as though I was underwater and in an airplane - so in short, I basically felt like my head was about to explode any minute.

I took advantage of the wedding medical exam to ask the doctor about my throat, since I was at the time mostly suffering from a painful sore throat. The doctor wrote out a prescription for Advil Cold & Sinus - a.k.a. "RhinAdvil" here in France. The ultimate result was that the stupid Advil made me really sleepy and only declogged my nasal area for a few hours before all that phlegm came rushing back into the nostrils from my ears.

Today is the first day that I have been able to actually feel the air penetrate my nose, so I guess that the Advil has been somewhat effective. However, I still have a sneaking suspicion that I am really just suffering from the start of allergy season. In case you did not know, I am the type of allergy sufferer that needs to live in a bubble in the spring when all those allergens start their invasion. Here in France, doctors seem to not understand at what point I suffer from allergies - I distinctly get the impression that they think allergies don't really exist. Case in point - I said to the doctor this week that I suspected the sore throat was a result of my allergies, meaning that all that mucus was trickling down into my throat and irritating it, and he said that no one has allergies that serious, and it couldn't possibly be the case. In New York, I have a wonderful allergist of the type who is always listed in those "Best Doctors in America!" articles in magazines. When I first went to see her, she administered that horrible skin prick test, to determine what I am allergic to. As I sat there, staring in horror at my deformed forearm, I said, "Dr. S, I'm not like, the worst allergy sufferer, right? I mean, there are people with worse allergies than me, no?" Dr. S. peered at me over her glasses, and said, "Well, I have been in this business for a long time, and to be honest, you are in the top 10% of the worst allergy sufferers I have ever seen." She then said, "You need allergy shots" with the same urgency I might say to J.Lo, "You need to stay away from Tom Cruise".

Oddly enough though, I have undergone my allergy shot treatment in New York and whenever I go back to New York in the springtime, I don't really suffer much anymore, but here in France, it just seems like my allergies are at their worst - to the point that I won't be able to breathe through my nose for about 2 weeks. I guess I should really see an allergist and get myself desensitized to all those weird little French allergens.

Anyway, the BF wants to go for a walk now, so we'll see if my current bout of runny nose is due to a cold or allergies....