Diet taboos for patients with rhinitis

One is to always avoid foods that are known to trigger allergic reactions in oneself, and the other is to avoid foods with high histamine, strong irritants, and high added sugar during an acute rhinitis attack. All "one-size-fits-all" taboos that are divorced from individual allergies and rhinitis types are useless or even harmful to the body.

To be honest, I have been in the otolaryngology department for almost 8 years, and I have seen too many patients who were so careless that their bodies were destroyed. Last month, there was a 12-year-old boy. His mother didn’t know where he read about the need to avoid milk and eggs for rhinitis, so he stopped drinking milk and eggs for two years. When he came for a review, he was half a head shorter than his peers. He often catches colds, and the number of rhinitis attacks is increasing. Later, I checked the food allergens and found that the child is not allergic to milk and eggs at all, but is allergic to dust mites. Doing a good job in removing mites at home is better than anything else.

The question that many people are confused about, "Can rhinitis be treated with raw or cold medicine?" is actually a typical controversial issue, and different medical schools have completely different opinions. Traditional Chinese medicine generally believes that raw and cold food will damage the lungs. People with cold-deficiency rhinitis (usually afraid of cold, sneezing more than ten times in a row when encountering cold wind in the morning, running clear and thin nose, and white tongue coating) should avoid touching iced milk tea and iced watermelon just taken out of the refrigerator, as this can easily directly induce an acute attack. ； However, there is no clinical concept of "cold triggering rhinitis" in Western medicine. If you have damp-heat rhinitis (usually afraid of heat, have yellow and thick nasal mucus, and are prone to sore throats), or are simply allergic to dust mites or pollen, and drink ice without any discomfort at all, then there is really no need to give up hard. What's wrong with eating popsicles in the summer?

Speaking of dietary pitfalls during the attack period, I just treated an old patient last week. He had typical summer and autumn hay fever, which was pretty much under control with medication. Last week, I went to the Oktoberfest with my friends to have fun, and ate half a plate of drunken crabs, and showed off two pounds of freshly picked bayberries. When I got home that day, I was so congested that I could only breathe through my mouth. I came to the emergency room at two in the morning holding toilet paper. This is actually the problem with high histamine foods - stale seafood, fermented foods (fermented bean curd, aged cheese, pickled products), highly mature tuna, and newly released bayberry. These foods have high histamine content. You may not feel it when you eat it during the stable period, but during the attack period, the nasal mucosa is already in a state of hypersensitivity edema. Extra intake of histamine is equivalent to "passing a knife" to inflammation, which will directly aggravate the symptoms of nasal congestion and sneezing.

Some people say that people with rhinitis cannot eat spicy food, beef, mutton, seafood or other "fat foods". In fact, these are just generalizations. Spicy food will indeed dilate the blood vessels of the nasal mucosa. During the attack itself, the nasal mucosa will be as red as a ripe cherry. If you take a bite of the pepper, your nose will flow with snot and tears. It is just looking for trouble. ； But if you are a Sichuanese who grew up eating spicy food, and you don’t have any reaction to rhinitis from eating hot pot, you don’t need to stop eating it at all. As for beef, mutton and seafood, it is even more unfair. As long as you are not allergic to these in the allergen test and do not aggravate rhinitis within 24 hours after eating, you can eat without worry. High-quality protein can supplement immunity and reduce the frequency of rhinitis attacks. After the 12-year-old boy resumed drinking milk, he grew 3 cm in six months, had fewer colds, and the frequency of rhinitis attacks dropped by two-thirds.

Oh, by the way, there is another point that is easily overlooked: foods high in added sugar. Clinical studies in recent years have confirmed that excessive intake of added sugar will increase the levels of inflammatory factors in the body. Whether it is allergic or chronic non-allergic rhinitis, it may aggravate the inflammatory response. I have seen many young patients who were almost recovering from the attack, but after drinking a cup of full-sugar milk tea, the blockage became more severe the next day. It’s not that they can’t eat sweets. It’s perfectly fine to eat a small cake to satisfy their cravings occasionally. Just don’t drink tons of full-sugar milk tea every day.

If you are really unsure about what you can and cannot eat, don't blindly compare it with the taboo list on the Internet. Keep a food diary for two weeks and you will know everything: every time you eat something, pay attention to whether there are more sneezing or nasal congestion within 24 hours. If you memorize more, your own taboo list will be more accurate than anyone else's. After all, the taboo for rhinitis is never to tell you not to eat this or that, but not to let the food you eat block your nose for no reason.