For a part of the body that is relatively small, the nose can contribute quite a bit to life in both pleasant and unpleasant ways: the enjoyment of an aroma or a meal, or the misery of a head cold. Most of the time your nose works quietly in the background, but sometimes things go wrong with the nose, the sinuses, or the sense of smell. Most of these problems have a solution.
Taste and smell
Most of taste is actually smell, which is readily tested by eating while holding your nose or when your sinuses are plugged with a cold. But the sense of smell and therefore taste can be distorted or lessened. How do you know whether that’s a problem for you? Are you seasoning your food more now than you used to, or more than most people? Do you use a lot of salt, hot sauce, ketchup, sugar, soy sauce or other flavoring to try to get your food to have some flavor? You probably have lost some of your sense of smell. This is more than inconvenient; smell is a warning system for such things as gas or smoke.
Some of lessened smell and taste lies in what you’re used to comparing it to. Fruit can taste almost too sweet if you rarely eat it, but taste uninteresting if you’re used to consuming candy. If you put a lot of salt on food, unsalted food will taste too bland. Reducing such intense flavors can help other foods regain their own flavor.
Another cause of loss of smell and taste is low levels of the mineral zinc. Low levels of zinc can be caused by dietary deficiency or by having mercury such as from metal dental fillings in your body. A simple zinc solution that can be administered at CAM can taste metallic if your zinc levels are normal but like plain water if they’re low. Zinc supplementation can remedy this.
A number of medications can affect smell and taste, most notably some cancer chemotherapy. Smoking can dull the sense of smell and taste, in part because of the loss of zinc that is displaced by the cadmium in tobacco smoke.
Hypersensitivity to odors
Some people have the opposite problem: their sense of smell is too acute. Such people might smell a chemical before anyone else can, and be bothered by it. They may swear that they can pick up single molecules of cologne or cigarette smoke. In many cases this is because the body is overloaded with chemicals. Suspect that this is the case if cologne is unpleasant even in tiny amounts, and especially if it smells like bug spray. CAM has a number of ways to identify and help reduce chemical overload.
Clogged sinuses
Clogged or dripping sinuses can be due to allergy or infection. Allergies can be due to inhaled pollen or chemicals, or to food.
Nose drops can relieve congestion in the short run but can cause greater nasal congestion than what was originally present. You may need to wean yourself off them one nostril at a time.
Your mother was right – chicken soup helps reduce nasal congestion. So does breathing steam, by itself or with peppermint or other herbal oil, but be careful of scalding. Liquid germanium may also be useful, especially in a nebulizer which converts the germanium to a mist to be breathed, releasing oxygen.
Sinus infection
Sinus infection can be bacterial or fungal, or be part of a viral cold. The usual treatment for a sinus infection is antibiotics, but these are useful only against bacteria; they can actually make a fungal condition worse. A culture should be done of the mucus produced to determine the cause of infection.
To prevent a sinus infection, blow your nose gently when you have a cold, and do not close one nostril when blowing your nose.
Runny nose
Nasal discharge, also called rhinorrhea, is one of the ways that the body rids itself of toxins, so it is best to deal with the root cause rather than suppressing this avenue of detoxification.
As with most symptoms, it helps to do some detective work. For example, if your nose clogs up and you have to clear your throat a lot, and the pattern of journal entries shows that this happens after eating or drinking milk products, it doesn’t take a medical degree to figure out that you probably have a milk allergy.
Nasal discharge or sniffling and clogged sinuses can result from nickel in the teeth or microorganisms.
Nose picking
Nose picking can be a sign of parasites, and the picking is the parasites’ way of keeping their life cycle going.
Nasal polyps
Nasal polyps are lumps inside the nose or sinuses that hang from a stalk. They can cause difficulty breathing through the nose, or might keep getting injured and bleed. If they become large enough, they might need to be surgically removed.
The four top front teeth drain upward through the nose into the brain. Mercury in these teeth can cause nasal polyps, as can the nickel from root canals in the top front teeth. Electrical charges in these teeth can also cause nasal polyps. Another cause is allergy to milk or certain medications or chemicals.
Nosebleeds
Nosebleeds can be caused by nose picking, nasal polyps, chemicals, allergy, microorganisms, or a blood clotting disorder. Low vitamin C or vitamin K can contribute to nosebleeds.
In summary
Problems with the nose, sinuses, or smell can be a sign of something that is not right in your body in general. It is important to identify and address what is going on.
