Hi folks. I know this will sound extremely bizarre, but it has been bugging me for a good number of months and I'm interested in seeing if anyone is experiencing the same problem and may have a solution or suggestions.
I'm 26 and in good health. But lately, I'm having difficulty completing sneezes, and the sneeze always takes a week or two to finally come out.
It all started back in May last year when I went to my bedroom mirror and rubbed my eyes (I think I was just trying to get some dirt out of them). A couple of seconds later, my eyes started stinging quite badly for at least a minute. After that, every time I felt a sneeze coming on, it would never come out. This went on for about two weeks, and I experienced quite bad headaches and pressure in my head. The headaches/pressure never stayed in the same place; it always moved around my head and felt like someone had tied a tight band around my head. After about two weeks, I finally sneezed and my symptoms went away. I was finally back to sneezing normally.
A few months later, I did the same thing - rubbed my eyes at my mirror and my eyes started stinging like crazy, and was unable to sneeze for the next two weeks, accompanied by headaches/pressure, as well as having trouble concentrating and keeping my eyes open, especially in the evening. Again, once I finally sneezed, those symptoms disappeared.
After that, I decided to avoid rubbing my eyes too often. Unfortunately, a few months later, it started happening again, but I hadn't been touching my eyes this time. It's almost as though it came on randomly. I kept feeling the urge to sneeze, but it never came out. For about a week, I once again experienced the headaches/pressure/tiredness, which all went away when the sneeze came out.
Sadly, it has worsened. Since December last year, I have been experiencing the inability to sneeze (as well as the headaches/pressure) on a fortnightly basis, and I think it's starting to happen more and more often now. For example, I managed to sneeze last weekend, but it was replaced with another trapped sneeze the next day.
I have tried forcing myself to sneeze by sniffing pepper, as well as putting a pointy tissue up my nostrils and moving it about until I sneeze. Although that provides temporary relief from the symptoms, they quickly return. Only the originally trapped sneeze relieves the symptoms when it finally decides to come out.
Recently, I finally decided to see a doctor about this, and said said it's probably allergy-related, so she gave me a nose spray. I've been taking this for a few weeks now and it's not helped. Taking antihistamines doesn't seem to work either. I also took the liberty of thoroughly cleaning and vacuuming my bedroom as I think I have a dust allergy, but I'm still puzzled as to why this suddenly started happening to me.
I've found this problem on a few other forum threads out there, and the responses have been very interesting. Most people have said it could be psychological, but some people have said it could be a damaged nerve (which can take a long time to heal), and someone even said it could be a brain tumour - his son had the same problem and it turned out to be a brain tumour. Once the tumour was removed, he could sneeze normally again.
I've not been to an ENT specialist about this yet, simply because I'm not sure how he/she would be able to treat the apparent inability to sneeze.
This week, I've been feeling awful and downright miserable. The headaches/pressure was hard to bear, I've been struggling to keep my eyes open, and I even experienced burning nostrils and slight pressure in my cheeks underneath my eyes. However, I'm not sure if that's a side effect of the nose spray or too much tickling the insides of my nostrils with a tissue.
What do you folks think? I'm starting to get tired of dealing with this extremely annoying problem.
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