im usually on the GERD forum but as of late ive started doubting my diagnosis. following a thread i made about
it someone suggested allergies so here i am looking for advice, or rather to see if this sounds like allergies to any of you.
first, as the title says my symptoms are mostly winter related. i do experience some in the summer but my usual pattern is like this: 2 good weeks with 1 bad day in between during summer, 2 bad weeks with 1 good day in between during winter.
as far as my symptoms are concerned here they are (ranked by how often they occur):
-tongue problems: inflamed taste buds (both big red flat ones and small raised white ones almost like mini spikes), metallic/blood taste and rough (almost sandpaper) tongue. mostly happens at the back and my mouth itself isnt dry.
-front neck tension: mostly near the base of the neck.
-stuffy nose and watery eyes: this is a strange one, its not very frequent outside the shower but it'll come out of nowhere and clear up in minutes. on the other hand in the shower its almost guaranteed to happen, maybe humidity change causes everything to unclog.
-ear pain: mostly the right one, it doesnt feel clogged nor do i have any hearing difficulties.
-shortness of breath: no wheezing or strange sound, simply feels like no matter how deep of a breath i take my lungs dont feel satisfied.
-brain fog: another strange one in that it seems to happen a lot more during summer or maybe i have it all winter and stopped noticing it lol.
-all my other symptoms would be "proper" GERD symptoms, altho the least common ones. they happen less often than the others i noted so i wont go into them.
one thing to add is the pattern of the symptoms are quite strange, first usually ill experience only one of them at a time it will come and go during the day and last 1-2 days before either switching to another symptom (winter) or get better for a few weeks (summer). also there doesnt seem to be a trigger for any of this, this is initially why i started doubting my GERD diagnosis (GERD has specific food triggers). speaking of food i ruled those out by one week eating the same thing followed by a 5 day fast, my symptoms pattern was unchanged.
as far as how it all started it was very sudden during winter 2014. my tongue was the first thing affected then the other symptoms came. the pattern has been very stable for the past 2 years, Oct is when the symptoms worsen and become more frequent while April is when they die down for all summer. i dont have any of the traditional red eyes, runny nose, etc so allergies never crossed my mind.
a few extra notes: when i wake up im fine aside from a dry throat (only during winter - havent invested in a humidifier yet) symptoms come about
30 min to 2 hours later depending on how lucky i am. the only time i can truly say i had no symptoms during winter (which lasted for 2-3 weeks) was in winter 2014 about
2 months after it all started. we did a deep cleaning in the house (moved furniture, vacuumed a lot, even washed the walls) further supporting the allergy idea (dust? pets? have 3 cats, mold? old house).
sorry theres so much text i tried to keep it short with the most relevant information only. so, does this sound like allergies to anyone?
Post Edited (SD93) : 11/29/2016 2:53:47 AM (GMT-7)