One more discovery on running/breathing: histamines!

I’ve noticed that I’ve been really, really sniffly and increasingly sneezy after running at the gym. On Saturday, it was so strong that I pretty much didn’t stop sneezing & blowing my nose all day, and the tingling in one side of my nose didn’t stop till almost 48 hours later. I was skin-tested for allergies of all kinds two years ago, and came up not allergic to anything, at all. But still, I knew the sneezing couldn’t be right, so after some googling around, I found this:

It sounds as though you may have exercise-induced rhinitis (rhinitis being the medical term for inflammation of the nose).

Here’s an abstract of a very recent professional article on these syndromes: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mksg/al l/2008/00000063/00000008/art00001

The culprit behind exercise-induced hives and rhinitis is histamine, best known as the allergy chemical. However, histamine is released in the body for many normal, non-allergic functions. Typical symptoms due to too much histamine include itching, sneezing, and runny nose. One could speculate that because running and rowing are very intense aerobic activities, your body produces a lot of histamine at those times, as opposed to the more moderately aerobic stairmaster and elliptical sessions.

Since I don’t take antihistamines— the last time I took cold medicine about 15 years ago, I hallucinated and cried a lot— I was sort of bummed about what to do. I’m calling my allergist for an appointment, but in the meantime, I found NasalCrom after search for non-drowsy antihistamines. It’s a spray, but is non-addictive like Afrin is. And it’s best as a preventative measure, not as a treatment once you have symptoms.

So, before I did my inhaler this morning before running at the gym, I did a couple of squirts of NasalCrom, too. (I’m now starting to feel like a junkie with all that I’m huffing and snorting before working out…) It seems to have worked pretty well! I feel a little tingle, but no sneezing or runny nose at all. They say it takes up to a week of regular use to feel the full effect, but so far so good.