Nose always partly plugged

[caelanb]

Hello,

So I was wondering if any of you could help me with an annoying issue I've had for many years now. Ever since I can remember, my nose has been getting stuffy and plugged up as it usually does; when I go outside in the cold, when I get sick, and cleared up in the absence of those things, nothing that I can remember of the top of my head causes a stuffy nose (including allergies, because I don't have any). But, About 2-3 years, ago I'm not sure how long ago, I had an issue with eating, so my parents would have to make sure that I ate. And so sometimes it got stressful, because I did want to eat, but I refused to eat because I just told myself I could not, and if I did not eat my parents would punish me (just having my phone gone and no internet). So, one day I was at the table and it was either my mother or father who was with me, I was running out of time with the time they had a given me to eat, so I started eating quicker. From what I remember, I was thinking that I had to finish before the time ended, or else the punishments would come in , and I did not let myself accept the punishments. So, this made me quite stressed, causing me to eat at a very fast rate, without actually trying to enjoy the meal. As I was doing this, at one point, this really weird feeling of some sort occurred, I felt something change, almost like a buzz, or a small sense of losing touch with reality because I was giving myself no option but finish my meal within the shortening time, I honestly don't know what it was exactly.

And so ever since that meal, whenever I am stressed while I eat, or something stresses me out, my nose gets stuffy which makes it slightly plugged up, and runny also, which I had never had before that time. I have also just realized, that I don't think both of my nostrils have ever been cleared since then (I could be wrong however), it has either been one, or the other, or partly both, or both. It makes meditation kinda annoying because I don't have free flowing air from both nostrils, so the air makes a wheezing sound as it comes in and out sometimes. I have asked my Doctor and psychologist, but they don't know what it is. I don't know how to reverse it either because I don't know what I did/what happened. I might have created some weird change in my neurology or something.

If anyone could tell me what they think this could be that would be great, and if so, how I could possibly go about reversing it.

Thank you.

[Username]

Your post is quite long, I don't have time to read it properly.

Possible reasons why nose is plugged:

• dry air / air conditioning. I use air humidifiers when heaters are on

• allergy

• inflammation (I recommend supplementing antioxidants, they are also helpful if you have an allergy)

• displaced nasal septum / enlarged turbinates

[LastThursday]

I have the same problem although less severe than you. I regularly use a hay fever nasal spray (even in winter) as it's the only thing that works. I suspect in my case it's inflammation caused by an allergic reaction to something, although I'm not sure what. In the UK the spray is Beconase (beclometasone dipropionate), which is suitable for long term use, although not suggested as such on the packaging. It will take a week or two of regular use to start working. I can breathe normally now.

I will say, it's always better to treat the causes than the symptoms, but just having relief can change your life.

[Thought Art]

Do you massage your face, throat and nostrils? 

Do you gargle water regularly to clear your throat?

Have you tried using nasal spray to clean out the nasal cavity?

Have you been to a doctor or specialist?

Edited September 14, 2021 by Thought Art

[Flowerfaeiry]

Two things: are you generally a mouth breather?

Do you get enough fresh air?

Mouth breathing can exacerbate a stuffy nose making it even more difficult to breath. So over time you can practice with remembering to breath through your nose throughout the day.

If you have access to fresh air go outside and intentionally breath through your nose. Play with different types of breath like breathing fast or pulling up your sinuses or blowing your nose or taking long and deep breaths. Do this every day if you can. You may see an improvement right away and over time the results build. 

Finally, mouth taping at night may help once you have some clearance of your nostrils and can breath through them. The idea is that the taping prevents you from breathing through your mouth and can help train you to breath through your nose instead which is ultimately healthier. (google for more info).

I've been healing my nose problems these ways.  

[Leo Gura]

It's most likely your diet.

If you seriously clean up your diet it should improve a lot.

[Raptorsin7]

I've had my nasal passage completely open on psychidelics. It felt like someone was breaking my nose open from the inside. 

I also found that heavy vomitting from psychidelics also opened my nasal passage.

Have you tried placing your attention on your nose and just resting as the presence you are. Just be with the nasal sensations and see how they change and unfold

[Sage]

@caelanb Read The Breathing Cure by Patrick McKeown, you should have it sorted within a couple of weeks if you follow the exercises diligently

[caelanb]

Thanks for the replies.

@Username I have not noticed any changes in my air flow based on the options that you have mentioned. The airway seems to be  predominantly effected by my stress level, however, those could be a possibility I guess. I also think that perhaps, the stress caused stuffy nose, could be triggering the mucus to be carried up by the cilia and hairs in my nasal passage. Because after I blow my nose it seems to clear up decently well.  Guess I'll try a humidifier and see if it works.

@LastThursday I have no experience with nasal spray, but it could be helpful, I'd have to find.

@Thought Art 1. No 2. No 3. No But I may try, because of LastThursday's suggestion 4. No, but I have asked my doctor and she says she does not know. I don't know which type of specialist that could help with it, plus, specialists don't usually help you unless you have a serious issue which hinders your daily life.

@Flowerfaeiry I consider myself to be a nose breather, I never really breath from my mouth unless I'm breathing hard, such as exercising. I go out for a walk around my neighbourhood for about 15-30 minutes. How do you breath fast without hyperventilating?

What do you mean by:

On 2021-09-14 at 3:48 PM, Flowerfaeiry said:

pulling up your sinuses

After blowing my nose, it gets quite clear, but my left nostril is usually the one to stay slightly plugged, even after blowing everything out. How long do you do these types of breathing techniques for? I don't know what mouth taping is. My stuffed plugged nose just makes it a little hard to breath through my nasal package, but not to the point were I cannot breath through it at least when I'm not doing activities which requires heavier breathing.

@Leo Gura I mean it could be, but from my my experience it does not seem it be. Stress seems to be the main culprit, because, it was never an issue, until that day many years ago. My diet has changed slightly over he span of 3 ish years, but I have not noticed any correlation between my issue and my diet. Plus I consider myself to have a pretty clean diet, however, according to your video "How to shop for healthy food", not so. But in my opinion, a lot of the food that you exclude, are considered from my knowledge and what I have a heard from my dietitian are considered to be healthy. And cleaning them up, would be too restrictive. But I do agree with the limitations of highly processed foods and such.

@Raptorsin7 I'm don't feel comfortable with unplugging my nose with psychedelics, plus I don't have easy access to them. 

I kind of due that while meditation, but I focus on my breath, while trying to allow the thoughts to pass, and not get to caught up in them. But I have not noticed any change in the plugging by doing this technique of meditation. However, I guess I could try to just sit with the sensation.

 

[Michael569]

It might stem from gut-related food intolerance. Any sort of mucous discharge and respiratory blockage is either caused by environmental irritation or dietary intolerance. Mechanical obstruction in the nasal package such as deviated septum or nasal pollyps is also a possibility. 

If outside exposure is a cause (e.g. pollen, dust, dustmites), tests can be down for that. Some of those are serum IgE or finger prick. Your doctor can do those fairly cheaply. Once you test positive on IgE alergy to something, avoidance is usually the best remedy or some natural antihistamines such as quercetin dihydrate

If the cause is intolerance to food on the level of the gut triggering an immune reaction and buildup and discharge of mucous, that's a bit more difficult to deal with but can equally be tested for. If you suspect gut health to be the cause best work with someone who knows what they are doing. You could try ti get gastroenterology appointment and see if you could get a few tests done. Sometimes even things such as intestinal permeability could be related to immunological symptoms but this is again something that needs a supervision of medical professional, nutritionist or a gut health specialist. 

For mechanical obstruction, ask your doctor if they would be able to have a lookup your nasal cavity to check for nasal polyps or cartilage obstruction. 

Most nasal inhalers are only masking symptoms, in majority of cases this is not something you can fix with any nasal sprays or nasal corticoids.  

[flowboy]

On 16/09/2021 at 0:43 PM, Raptorsin7 said:

I've had my nasal passage completely open on psychidelics. It felt like someone was breaking my nose open from the inside. 

I also found that heavy vomitting from psychidelics also opened my nasal passage.

Have you tried placing your attention on your nose and just resting as the presence you are. Just be with the nasal sensations and see how they change and unfold

Yes, mescaline did this for me too. Quite shocking. The nasal passage was so open, that I felt like I had a giant hole in the middle of my head, that wind was flowing through. It was connected to a sense of strength and purpose, though.

 

On 14/09/2021 at 4:13 PM, caelanb said:

From what I remember, I was thinking that I had to finish before the time ended, or else the punishments would come in , and I did not let myself accept the punishments. So, this made me quite stressed, causing me to eat at a very fast rate, without actually trying to enjoy the meal. As I was doing this, at one point, this really weird feeling of some sort occurred, I felt something change, almost like a buzz, or a small sense of losing touch with reality because I was giving myself no option but finish my meal within the shortening time, I honestly don't know what it was exactly.

And so ever since that meal, whenever I am stressed while I eat, or something stresses me out, my nose gets stuffy which makes it slightly plugged up, and runny also, which I had never had before that time.

How old were you when that happened?

Sounds like that was a traumatic moment, and conditioning was created that manifested psychosomatically.

I'm sorry to hear that. That is not a right way to treat a child. They should have been loving and understanding towards you in that moment, but instead they were cold, unloving, and made you ignore your feelings and disown your experience.

Whenever a child is being made to reject part of its own experience (in this case: you parents telling you that your lack of appetite is wrong), it creates a split. The part of you that experienced that which was deemed not okay, is now pushed into the shadow. And any experience it has, is also pushed down.

When we push down something we are not allowing ourselves to experience, it can cause a blockage in the body. Numbness, pain, inability to experience pleasure in that area, or a literal blockage. Maybe that's how your nose got stuffed.

 

It's just a theory, but it seems reasonable to me that you should treat this as childhood conditioning, incurred by this moment that was experienced as traumatic at the time. (Be careful not to minimize it. It doesn't matter what you as an adult consider traumatic. It only matters how it was experienced at that time)

If that's what it is, then when you go through the process of releasing that conditioning, it could very well clear up your nose too. You won't find a medical cause in that case.

Some avenues to consider:

• Primal therapy (I had great experience with this)
• Ayahuasca
• Body work
• Regression hypnosis
• Any therapist or healer who you trust and who specializes in childhood conditioning (not just any psychologist)

Edited September 17, 2021 by flowboy

[Nahm]

 

 

@caelanb

From a spiritual lens there was always the option to eat like everyone else, and even meditatively. The hurried eating wasn’t caused by them but by choosing not to eat. Again, spiritually speaking, spiritual smell is related to truth & vibration, similar to the stomach issues and identity beliefs or attachments.

There’s no need to reverse it, as in the experiential symptoms. Reverse your perspective in terms of role. Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have to resort to taking things away from your kid to get them to eat. Feel the love behind that and your nose will clear up. Use a neti pot in the shower every morning to help it along. And neurology didn’t change, nothing got ‘messed up’. Neurology is only change. 

Really getting to the root… nothing happened ‘years ago’ which causes this stress. A repeating perspective is arising now which feels discordant. Change it such that it feels aligned with truth. 

[TheSomeBody]

just use neti pot with an essential oil called synergy, put alittle bit 

[caelanb]

On 2021-09-17 at 0:04 PM, flowboy said:

How old were you when that happened?

Sounds like that was a traumatic moment, and conditioning was created that manifested psychosomatically.

I'm sorry to hear that. That is not a right way to treat a child. They should have been loving and understanding towards you in that moment, but instead they were cold, unloving, and made you ignore your feelings and disown your experience.

Whenever a child is being made to reject part of its own experience (in this case: you parents telling you that your lack of appetite is wrong), it creates a split. The part of you that experienced that which was deemed not okay, is now pushed into the shadow. And any experience it has, is also pushed down.

When we push down something we are not allowing ourselves to experience, it can cause a blockage in the body. Numbness, pain, inability to experience pleasure in that area, or a literal blockage. Maybe that's how your nose got stuffed.

 

It's just a theory, but it seems reasonable to me that you should treat this as childhood conditioning, incurred by this moment that was experienced as traumatic at the time. (Be careful not to minimize it. It doesn't matter what you as an adult consider traumatic. It only matters how it was experienced at that time)

If that's what it is, then when you go through the process of releasing that conditioning, it could very well clear up your nose too. You won't find a medical cause in that case.

Some avenues to consider:

• Primal therapy (I had great experience with this)
• Ayahuasca
• Body work
• Regression hypnosis
• Any therapist or healer who you trust and who specializes in childhood conditioning (not just any psychologist)

@flowboy I was about 19 years old, I don't know exactly though. I wouldn't say that I had no appetite, it's just that I was trying to deny it due to an ED, and thus, most of my thoughts and behaviours were focused on ignoring hunger signals and avoiding situations where it would be obvious to others that I was trying not to eat (thus leading to awkwardness). That's what I think I was doing. I did get hunger though, the hunger plus the punishments that would come along triggered me to eat. It was very twisted because when I started to eat, I put myself in the situations (as Nahm said) where I would have less time to eat (by delaying, and then that caused stressed, and then led to the weird experience I had. I don't have a very good understanding of psychosomatic stuff, but with a quick search, I feel like it would apply pretty well to my issue.

I've never heard of Primal therapy, can't do Ayahuasca because it's illegal where I live (and I don't think I'm ready for, so I don't want to risk f*cking myself up). Do you mean body awareness meditation? Never heard of regression hypnosis. I do have a psychologist that I see every 2 weeks to 1 month, I have asked her about this, and she does not know what it is. We talk mostly about my low self-esteem, self consciousness and insecurity, the general negative thought patterns that most people develop through the twelve years of school. I'm not sure what you mean by a healer, seems like some woo woo thing to me, but I could be wrong again.

 

On 2021-09-17 at 0:24 PM, Nahm said:

From a spiritual lens there was always the option to eat like everyone else, and even meditatively. The hurried eating wasn’t caused by them but by choosing not to eat. Again, spiritually speaking, spiritual smell is related to truth & vibration, similar to the stomach issues and identity beliefs or attachments.

There’s no need to reverse it, as in the experiential symptoms. Reverse your perspective in terms of role. Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have to resort to taking things away from your kid to get them to eat. Feel the love behind that and your nose will clear up. Use a neti pot in the shower every morning to help it along. And neurology didn’t change, nothing got ‘messed up’. Neurology is only change. 

Really getting to the root… nothing happened ‘years ago’ which causes this stress. A repeating perspective is arising now which feels discordant. Change it such that it feels aligned with truth. 

@Nahm I'm not sure what you mean by spiritual smell. I don't really feel the love behind their actions, because I see it more as a reaction to the anger that arose in them when I didn't eat. And thus, it didn't seem like a correct long term solution to the issues I was having. but I didn't want to change it (and be more autonomous), because it was uncomfortable to change it, or at least that's what I remember it being. I've heard of a neti pot. I am also skeptical that feeling the apparent love that I wasn't seeing will help clear my nose, but it may work. I'm not sure what you mean by 'Neurology is only change'.

I would say that a stressful experience happened years ago while I was eating, that now causes a physiological reaction to any stress that is experienced while I eat (which is normal now,but annoying). But you're saying that nothing happened years ago, I'm not sure what you mean by that. What do you mean by truth? What Leo calls absolute and relative truth, or something else?

[Nahm]

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

 

I'm not sure what you mean by spiritual smell.

Doesn’t matter. 

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

I don't really feel the love behind their actions, because I see it more as a reaction to the anger that arose in them when I didn't eat.

See it differently then, since the way you are choosing to see it does not resonate or feel good to you. 

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

And thus, it didn't seem like a correct long term solution to the issues I was having. but I didn't want to change it (and be more autonomous), because it was uncomfortable to change it, or at least that's what I remember it being.

It’s effortless to change perspectives and feels better. 

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

I've heard of a neti pot. I am also skeptical that feeling the apparent love that I wasn't seeing will help clear my nose, but it may work. I'm not sure what you mean by 'Neurology is only change'.

Neurology isn’t legos clicked into place which never change. It’s constant change. Small point though, doesn’t matter. 

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

I would say that a stressful experience happened years ago while I was eating, that now causes a physiological reaction to any stress that is experienced while I eat (which is normal now,but annoying).

If that doesn’t feel good, and the perspective is ‘now causes a physiological reaction’, change the perspective to a better feeling one. 

13 minutes ago, caelanb said:

But you're saying that nothing happened years ago, I'm not sure what you mean by that. What do you mean by truth? What Leo calls absolute and relative truth, or something else?

Not that and not something else either. You are making the claim that there is “something which happened years ago”. If there really is that, prove it. Take a picture and post it or pm it to me. 

[LfcCharlie4]

Had the same issue for years, 95% clear now- 

• Read Oxygen Advantage and do his nose clearing breathold, then ONLY breathe out of the nose, takes time but eventually becomes normal. Improves athletic performance long term, hinders short term as you adjust. 
• Tape your mouth at night so you ONLY breathe out of your nose, if you wake up with a dry mouth then you're mouth breathing at night 
• Clear your nose as much as necessary, I use a saline spray from Amazon its like £6 morning & night 
• get an air purifier for where you sleep / rooms you spend most time in - IF someone Smokes in your house this is 1000x more important, I live with a heavy smoker and this created lots of issues, ask them to smoke outside etc 
• Do the Wim Hof Method daily along with cold showers 
• Clean diet & check allergies ideally, remove foods that cause you issues, everyone unique 
• Try Sauna as often as possible & Steam Room, that helped me a lot beyond just clearing my nose 

This time about 2 years ago I think I posted on here about having Sinus issues, now completely gone, used to forever be bunged up & clearing my nose which was full of gunk, now only nose breathe & am about 95% clear, even as we enter winter in UK 

[Mada_]

I've heard about people taping their mouth at night. Something to look into. 

Eating foods that are inflammatory commonly causes a sniffly nose - see Leo's book list for book on immune system. 

Also some short term solutions: 

- nodi sodhana yoga

- using a neti pot

 

Avoid surgery. My brother got surgery on his Jose for this reason and now cannot breath through his nose at all. 

[Michael569]

@caelanb any chance this can be environmental? I get stuffy nose when I am in mouldy environment for example. Could there be mould, dustmites or other airborne allergens? 

If so a strong air filter can take care of that. 

[caelanb]

On 2021-10-20 at 2:27 PM, Nahm said:

See it differently then, since the way you are choosing to see it does not resonate or feel good to you.

On 2021-10-20 at 2:27 PM, Nahm said:

If that doesn’t feel good, and the perspective is ‘now causes a physiological reaction’, change the perspective to a better feeling one. 

On 2021-10-20 at 2:27 PM, Nahm said:

It’s effortless to change perspectives and feels better

@Nahm And I'll know that it resonates with me when my runnyness/stuffiness response to stress goes away? By see it differently, do you mean look at it from a different perspective (thought wise)? If I do the latter, I am having issues seeing how that would actually solve the problem. This is because I don't feel like any method/techniques I know how to do/am able to do would go deep enough to solve the issue I am having (if that's the solution). The runny nose issue came about through what felt like a random uncontrollable event, and so I'm not sure if me trying consciously to think about it in a different way would help solve the issue. And even if I do successfully look at it differently in a meaningful way, it may not change, because the perspective that I am looking at the event through might not be what's triggering the problem. It could be something else. I'm just speculating at this point, but I feel my like my points are valid. This psychology stuff is annoying and complicated, lol.

On 2021-10-20 at 2:27 PM, Nahm said:

Not that and not something else either. You are making the claim that there is “something which happened years ago”. If there really is that, prove it. Take a picture and post it or pm it to me

@Nahm I have no proof of it, I did not take a picture nor video of the event. I still have a memory of it, just like I have a memory of my last birthday. I also have a mark in my mind (I'll guess I can also describe it this way) about an event that took place many years ago. However, those two things that I just described are not material evidence, so you'd have to take my word for it.

 

@LfcCharlie4

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Read Oxygen Advantage and do his nose clearing breathold, then ONLY breathe out of the nose, takes time but eventually becomes normal. Improves athletic performance long term, hinders short term as you adjust.

I guess I can try that, I've never heard of that book. I never thought that one could clear their own nose with breathing exercises, I thought you had to blow your nose or eat something really spicy for you to be able to clear it. I usually do breath trough my nose. My athletic performance is pretty good I would say, but there is always the possibility of improvement.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Tape your mouth at night so you ONLY breathe out of your nose, if you wake up with a dry mouth then you're mouth breathing at night

I don't feel comfortable taping my nose at night. Plus, my mouth isn't usually dry when I wake up in the morning.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Clear your nose as much as necessary, I use a saline spray from Amazon its like £6 morning & night

I do clear my nose as much as I can whenever I blow it, but there is always still a little bit of plugging present. I've never used/heard of a saline spray, so I'd have to go check it out.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

get an air purifier for where you sleep / rooms you spend most time in - IF someone Smokes in your house this is 1000x more important, I live with a heavy smoker and this created lots of issues, ask them to smoke outside etc

I've never used an air purifier, nor do I no the technical details about what it actually does. No one smokes in my house, so I am lucky about that. Even if I did, from my experience, smokers tend to go outside to smoke.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Do the Wim Hof Method daily along with cold showers 

I have heard of Wim Hod and his method but I don't feel comfortable doing the method. This is because I'm not quite sure how my mind or body will respond it; I've seen videos of people going into pretty weird states while doing his breathing exercises (he was around to help these people though). I do take cold showers once a week, I take deep breaths when I step into the water if that counts for anything. So essentially, I don't do the Wim Hof method, but I take cold showers while breathing pretty deeply (for the first 30 or so seconds of being exposed to cold water). I did a 30 day cold shower challenge and I did not like it because it was very uncomfortable, so cold showers everyday is not my type of thing, at least not at the moment. Plus, it was in the middle of winter, so the cold winter made it even worse.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Clean diet & check allergies ideally, remove foods that cause you issues, everyone unique

I have no allergies from my knowledge, however, I do have digestive issues that I have been trying to deal with. It may be IBS, but whatever it is, the digestive issue doesn't seem to be correlated in any way to my nose plugging issue. My digestive issue is much more recent than the nose plugging issue. Even if my diet was the culprit, I'd have no idea how to go about cleaning it, because I consider my diet to be already pretty clean, however, there is some bias in that.

On 2021-10-21 at 7:07 AM, LfcCharlie4 said:

Try Sauna as often as possible & Steam Room, that helped me a lot beyond just clearing my nose

I don't have access to a sauna or steam room, plus they're probably really expensive to go to. Do you have your own sauna? I have heard of positive health benefits of using saunas ( from Dr.Rhonda Patrick). Though, I don't know how much scientific evidence there is that validate the positive health benefits of a Sauna, or extreme temperature exposures. I also don't know how strong the evidence is that support the use of sauna.

[Nahm]

@caelanb

I don’t think it’s really communicable in text.