Combatting Allergies: my thoughts at 4 am with inflamed sinuses....

 Root Causes: Immune system is funky. Off kilter. Over-reacting. Jumpy. Touchy. Just plain weird.

Symptoms: 

• nasal congestion at night. It feels like my body is actually producing more mucous as soon as I lie down,
• The "swelling feeling" in my sinuses when I lie down to sleep [sometimes with the 'popping' sound like a creaking wood ship, can feel it many successive pop pops. Sometimes squeaks.[hear inside my head, like that awful poprock candy]
• Vicious [cycle?] of only being able to sleep 3 hr chunks, often up for 1 hr between chunks. Getting only 6ish hours total of sleep a night. 
•  Itchy eyes. Tired all the time.

Clues: 

1. Mold in my twin's AC, and that time 3 yrs ago, my AC.
2. Start sneezing a lot around Bermuda grass and cats. But when one allergy worse, all worse. Bc its an immune thing. Allergies seem to piggyback. When one is bad, then everything else gets worse.
3. Josh had bad allergies for 10 yrs. Took cetirizine and levo-cetirizine. Then finally gave up allergy meds, and 70% if his symptoms went away. The pills will help with the flare out, but consistent long term use overall made the problem worse. So in this case, drugging his immune system gave short term relief at the cost of long term symptoms. As if the immune system was 'rebelling' to being drugged, and then net, overcompensating. ?Like moving around in a canoe?
4. When I take allergy medicine [tried 3 kinds] I just feel exhausted and tired when I wake up, despite having supposedly more sleep.
5. ??Always allergies in the Spring, like March, April. When the heat really hits, it recedes. Then comes back in the fall, Oct, Nov?? I remember it being REALLY BAD March and April 2023. Got air filters, felt like I was jsut falling apart. But the allergies weren't even the cause, it felt like even when it went away, I slept poorly. Then it was bad again, in March/April 2024, wasn't sleeping well, so I got all social and invited people over bc I was sorta sleep deprived uninhibited all the time. Fall 2022, we had found mold in the AC unit. [Spring of 2022 I really started noticing my allergies getting worse]. Something to do with AZ wildflower weeds? Am I just allergic to my own house? What is going on?
6. ?Twin in 2020 went on a mostly korean diet, dust mite allergies went away
7. ?Identical twin sister always had mmuch worse allergies than me. Same genetics, same environment, but as if the switch "flipped" earlier. Cat allergies from teenhood. My cat allergies didn't start till 28 yrs old. Used to be able to share a pillow with a cat. Hah.
8. ?I have been sleeping poorly since August 2023. Good nights I get 7 hrs. Maybe 30% of the time. Reverse insomnia, inability to sleep longer than 3.5 hrs. Up middle of the night, alergies, etc. 70% of the time. Inability to 'sleep in'. Last few months, 6 almost solid hrs on a good night. more like 3 + 2/3 hr chunks. Tired throughout the day. Now in Spring of 2025, allergies flaring in April again. Not as bad as last year, but really bad the last week, despite no rain. 

Things that help my allergies: 

• sitting up. 
• Hot tea.  
• ???helps or is just a result? SLEEPING WELL.
• Not being near cats or bermuda grass

Things to try: 

1. Exercise, cardio, every day, while forcing myself to breath through my nose. Need to make my brain get used to that.
2. Boost Immune system with Fruits and Vegs and sunlight. Vitamin C, magnesium etc. Eat lots of fruits and Veg and meat and sauerkraut. Get 20 min of vitamin D sunlight on my skin in the winter. Sit on a bench with my back to the sun during the winter. [wear a hat]
3. KIMCHI every day 
1. We found a significant inverse association between kimchi consumption and the asthma. We believe that this is the first study showing an inverse relationship between kimchi consumption and asthma in adults. Source
4. Yogurt every day
1. A study in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy found that people with allergies who consumed Lactobacillus casei, a probiotic found in yogurt, had lower levels of antibodies that respond to allergic reactions
5. Sauerkraut every day. Home-made [live] Sauerkraut every day [why not?] Its white people's kimchi and they've been doing it thousands of years.
6. Try to get good sleep to boost immunse system [hah]. So good sleep schedule. e.g. in bed by 10:15 pm, every night, no matter what. Start the same nightly routine, every night, at 9:45 pm, no matter what. Date night with Josh every week [or 2x/week?], where we talk, so I don't end up doing random talking times late at night. Not Youtube in the evenings. 
7. Go on an evening walk/outside during the golden hour. Be exposed to pollens in a calm relaxed setting. Try to make my warhawk immune system realize the pollen isn't an invader. e.g. "See immune system? These are friends..."
8. Don't use my bed as a couch during the day. [or let kids into my room during the day] Introduces allergens. Get a shorter pew bench in my room, before the bed, to sit on. ?cut off access to the bed with furniture, so kids less likely to play hide n seek on it? Lock up my room during the day as much as possible. Keep it as allergen free as possible. Spend the rest of the day desensitizing  myself to allergens, but make my bedroom as allergen free as possible.
9. Air filter in bedrooms [already doing it, doesn't seem to be doing much] 
10. Clean out my bedroom until its all hard surfaces. No soft surfaces except the bed. 
11. Wash sheets&blankets every WEEK on hot. USE THE HIGH cycle on the dryer for sheets & blankets [kills dust mites]. In the winter, you can just run the blanket on high heat once a week for 10 min, to kill dust mites.  

 Basically its a 3 pronged approach

Boost the Immune system by giving it what it needs, vitamins, gut health, and sleep [strict sleep schedule and exercise]

Exposure therapy in a calm setting. [Outside in the golden hour]

Cleanroom approach to my bedroom. [not the rest of my life. Just here]