According to statistics, an adult experiences symptoms of a runny nose – rhinitis – three to four times a year. Children may show these symptoms five to eight times a year. It is customary to associate rhinitis with a cold, but in fact it is an infectious disease caused by a virus.
In 50-60 percent of cases, the rhinovirus is to blame, in another 10-15 percent we are talking about coronavirus, but not about SARS-CoV-2, the pandemic of which humanity is currently experiencing. As stated in the program “Doctor Myasnikov” on the media platform “Looking” doctor Alexander Myasnikov, refers to one of the coronaviruses known since the 1960s.
One way or another, faced with a runny nose, we want to quickly get rid of an unpleasant symptom and begin to use vasoconstrictor drops or sprays.
“You drip and it helps you. But what happens? You get yourself hooked faster than on drugs,” Myasnikov said. According to him, after the end of the effect of the drops, the symptom returns, and the person takes it even more difficult.
“It’s called drug-induced rhinitis, which causes serious problems, because then you have to take hormones, you have to take a special treatment for weeks,” Myasnikov warned.
In this regard, vasoconstrictor drops should be taken no more than three to five days in a row.
Feeling stuffy in the nose can be a side effect of certain types of medications. These include sildenafil – a drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, as well as anti-inflammatory drugs – ibuprofen, diclofenac; estrogen and drugs used in hormone replacement therapy can also cause this effect. It is worth paying attention to the drugs used for hypertension: enalapril, captopril, lisinopril.
“If your nose is constantly stuffy, you have difficulty breathing, you snore at night, your nose runs or itches in your nose (by the way, an itchy nose is typical for allergies), consider medication,” the doctor said.
Rhinitis can be caused by many chronic diseases, such as thyroid disease. There are also rhinitis, which are provoked by certain foods.
By the way, it will not work to determine by the color of the discharge from the nose what exactly caused the runny nose. Not necessarily green discharge indicates a bacterial origin of rhinitis, and colorless discharge indicates an allergy. So if nasal congestion and runny nose are observed for more than seven days in a row, you should consult a doctor and find the real cause of the disease.