My story so far. PND, rhinitis, tonsil stones, temp BB cure with antibiotics
Posted: Sun May 28, 2017 7:50 pm
Hi all, this is my 1st ever post here. This forum is amazing! So much information to the point that it's a little overwhelming! I'd like to thank all those involved in making this forum happen as it's clearly very active and a great place to share information which helps many people. I'll now explain my ongoing story with BB and hopefully it will trigger discussion. Apologies if I write a lot, I will try and be as concise as possible and apologies if I'm going over already trodden ground - if so, please just point me in the right direction!
I'm a 30 year old male. I've been experiencing BB i would say from around age 14 when my younger brother started mocking me saying that i have BB etc. It was around this time that I became aware that my tonsils were full of very bad smelling stones I remember using a cotton bud to poke them and clean them out and my god LOADS came out it was disgusting. Since then I've been able to keep them pretty clean to the point where I dont really get the stones anymore but on a daily basis I have to squeeze my tonsils and a thick dark green liquid that has collected in them typically overnight comes out. Flossing my teeth daily also massively helps keeping my breath as clean as possible. If I leave it a few days then when I do floss, the floss smells like horrible tonsil stones.
I have very good dental hygiene and my dentist is totally happy with the health of my mouth and I have no dental issues so I am considering this to not be an issue or a cause of BB in my case.
I have had PND for a good few years now but I'm not sure for how long exactly. I appear to be allergic to something as my sinuses will block up and my nose will run for days. I think that swimming indoors and outdoors in a lake both triggers my PND, and sinuses blocking up with mucus and nose dripping. Although even when I dont go swimming I do appear to go for weeks of having really congested sinuses and PND really bad to the point where I cant breath through my nose then I will go for a few weeks when it is still there but much better and I can go swimming and it doesn't bother my sinuses and I appear to be normal. I also sometimes can smell like a cheesy smell in my nasal cavity and when my nose runs, the discharge from it actually smells cheesy and it is clear in colour I would say. The cheesy smell coming from my nose appears to be very random and will come and go for a few days every 2-3 weeks or so.
In a search for a cure to all of the above, I saw an ENT at my local hospital for the 2nd time a few days ago. They stuck a camera up my nose to confirm that there is lots of inflammation and mucus and that I have PND. They agree my tonsils are very cryptic and huge. They took a blood test to check for allergies and I am not allergic to anything. So far the Dr is saying I have 'intrinsic rhinitis' which as I understand is basically rhinitis that is caused by something unknown. They have sent me for a CT scan of my sinuses to 'see what the drainage system' is like. I haven't set a date for this yet but it should happen soon.The doctor also prescribed me a course of Clarithromycin antibiotics at a dose of 500mg once a day for 6 weeks. They also gave me a load of steroid based sprays to help with the inflammation and to reduce PND. I see the spray as more of a temporary relief to help control the problem. It isn't a cure for the problem nor does it show what the underlying cause is for my problems so I'm not particularly interested in talking about the steroid spray much.
So I have been taking the Clarithromycin for 4 days so far and wow! My bad breath has already completely gone. I wake up with no bad taste in my mouth and my friend has confirmed that my breath smells 'normal' rather than horrendous like it often is. I went lake swimming yesterday and my sinuses did block up and i my nose was running like normal. Today my nose is still slightly blocked but not really any PND and no bad breath. So although the Clarithromycin so far hasn't cured my rhinitis/PND, it has cured my BB. This leads me to a few key questions and points I'd now like to make and to help instigate some proactive discussion with you guys so that I can learn perhaps what is going on in my nose/mouth and to maybe help others to make positive progress with their cases.
1) Does the fact my BB is cured since taking Clarithromycin confirm that the root cause of my BB is in fact bacterial?
2) If the root cause of the BB is bacterial, if i eradicate the problem bacteria from my mouth (which i imagine is the state i am currently in), could I still get rhinitis, PND and tonsil stones but still not have BB?
3) Is it possible to still have tonsil stones but ones that dont smell bad?
4) I am 4 days into a 6 week course of taking 500mg of Clarithromycin daily as prescribed by my doctor. Based on the average experience of someone with similar issues to me, what should I expect to happen once I finish taking Clarithromycin? Will my BB typically come back shortly after or is it possible to expect a life long cure to the problem?
5) Would I benefit from self medicating anything else (probiotics seem very popular) while I am taking Clarithromycin despite my Dr not prescribing me anything else?
I will leave it at that for now as I think/hope I have made all the key points needed to explain my story as concisely as possible without waffling on too much!
Thanks guys! I look forward to hopefully having a good chat with some of you.
All the best,
UKJNR
I'm a 30 year old male. I've been experiencing BB i would say from around age 14 when my younger brother started mocking me saying that i have BB etc. It was around this time that I became aware that my tonsils were full of very bad smelling stones I remember using a cotton bud to poke them and clean them out and my god LOADS came out it was disgusting. Since then I've been able to keep them pretty clean to the point where I dont really get the stones anymore but on a daily basis I have to squeeze my tonsils and a thick dark green liquid that has collected in them typically overnight comes out. Flossing my teeth daily also massively helps keeping my breath as clean as possible. If I leave it a few days then when I do floss, the floss smells like horrible tonsil stones.
I have very good dental hygiene and my dentist is totally happy with the health of my mouth and I have no dental issues so I am considering this to not be an issue or a cause of BB in my case.
I have had PND for a good few years now but I'm not sure for how long exactly. I appear to be allergic to something as my sinuses will block up and my nose will run for days. I think that swimming indoors and outdoors in a lake both triggers my PND, and sinuses blocking up with mucus and nose dripping. Although even when I dont go swimming I do appear to go for weeks of having really congested sinuses and PND really bad to the point where I cant breath through my nose then I will go for a few weeks when it is still there but much better and I can go swimming and it doesn't bother my sinuses and I appear to be normal. I also sometimes can smell like a cheesy smell in my nasal cavity and when my nose runs, the discharge from it actually smells cheesy and it is clear in colour I would say. The cheesy smell coming from my nose appears to be very random and will come and go for a few days every 2-3 weeks or so.
In a search for a cure to all of the above, I saw an ENT at my local hospital for the 2nd time a few days ago. They stuck a camera up my nose to confirm that there is lots of inflammation and mucus and that I have PND. They agree my tonsils are very cryptic and huge. They took a blood test to check for allergies and I am not allergic to anything. So far the Dr is saying I have 'intrinsic rhinitis' which as I understand is basically rhinitis that is caused by something unknown. They have sent me for a CT scan of my sinuses to 'see what the drainage system' is like. I haven't set a date for this yet but it should happen soon.The doctor also prescribed me a course of Clarithromycin antibiotics at a dose of 500mg once a day for 6 weeks. They also gave me a load of steroid based sprays to help with the inflammation and to reduce PND. I see the spray as more of a temporary relief to help control the problem. It isn't a cure for the problem nor does it show what the underlying cause is for my problems so I'm not particularly interested in talking about the steroid spray much.
So I have been taking the Clarithromycin for 4 days so far and wow! My bad breath has already completely gone. I wake up with no bad taste in my mouth and my friend has confirmed that my breath smells 'normal' rather than horrendous like it often is. I went lake swimming yesterday and my sinuses did block up and i my nose was running like normal. Today my nose is still slightly blocked but not really any PND and no bad breath. So although the Clarithromycin so far hasn't cured my rhinitis/PND, it has cured my BB. This leads me to a few key questions and points I'd now like to make and to help instigate some proactive discussion with you guys so that I can learn perhaps what is going on in my nose/mouth and to maybe help others to make positive progress with their cases.
1) Does the fact my BB is cured since taking Clarithromycin confirm that the root cause of my BB is in fact bacterial?
2) If the root cause of the BB is bacterial, if i eradicate the problem bacteria from my mouth (which i imagine is the state i am currently in), could I still get rhinitis, PND and tonsil stones but still not have BB?
3) Is it possible to still have tonsil stones but ones that dont smell bad?
4) I am 4 days into a 6 week course of taking 500mg of Clarithromycin daily as prescribed by my doctor. Based on the average experience of someone with similar issues to me, what should I expect to happen once I finish taking Clarithromycin? Will my BB typically come back shortly after or is it possible to expect a life long cure to the problem?
5) Would I benefit from self medicating anything else (probiotics seem very popular) while I am taking Clarithromycin despite my Dr not prescribing me anything else?
I will leave it at that for now as I think/hope I have made all the key points needed to explain my story as concisely as possible without waffling on too much!
Thanks guys! I look forward to hopefully having a good chat with some of you.
All the best,
UKJNR