Please help, I’m at a loss.

I have found myself a part of a club none of us wants to be in, but I will share my story in hopes that you all may offer either simple solace or point me in a general direction that may lead to healing, as my symptoms are not perfectly aligned with any one ailment.

Since early January, I have had the sensation of thin mucous dripping down from above my soft palate, it’s more akin to the consistency of water than the thick mucous a lot of you describe. The strange thing is that it’s only been dripping down the left side, as such this rules out a lot of things like allergies and infection in my opinion as those should impact both sides equally. It irritates the skin it’s running over, as well as the left side of my throat and the left side of the base of my tongue. I also have this strange pain in the back of my neck, again on the left side. I don’t have that all the time, and it is not severe in the least, more noticeable than anything. Once in a blue moon I’ll notice the same thing on the right side in the same location but 99% of the time it’s the left. I get random jolts of dull nerve pain in my jaw, ear, and cheek bones as well. Those are also inconsistent, maybe once a day, if that.

I went to my primary care provider in February, she looked as far as she could in my ears, mouth and nose and saw nothing. It was her assessment this was a mix of allergies and TMJ, and I began a regimen of a quick few days of Afrin to stop the mucous production, then Claritin and Flonase. I did this as prescribed for about 35-40 days with absolutely no change. In this time I made an appointment with an ENT and was able to get in rather quickly and at that initial appointment he seemed to also believe it was allergy related, he did an endoscopy and saw nothing of concern on either side of my sinuses but did note that my sinuses looked “allergic.” He also noted a substantial underbite (no one has mentioned this in thirty-five years of regular dental checkups) and also thought I was dealing with two separate issues (TMJ and Allergies). He scheduled me for allergy testing and a follow up appointment in June. I had the allergy testing yesterday and it went as expected, no strong allergies to anything aside from things I am not around such as cats.

I am at a loss, I’m going on five months of this, it has caused substantial health anxiety that is impacting my sleep and mood. In that light I want to clarify (while also hopefully validating what the rest of you are feeling) that the post-nasal drip long preceded the anxiety. I honestly thought for a week or two I was just getting a cold. This was January, right after all the holiday get-togethers and it seemed like nearly everyone was coughing and congested.

I have considered LPR, and have made modifications that should help that with no improvement. I do not eat hardly any dairy aside from one spoonful of the organic plain Greek yogurt from Costco in my morning smoothie and a small amount of grass fed butter maybe two or three days a week. I’ve been on an unprocessed anti-inflammatory diet for a while now, and while that has helped from a digestion perspective, I’ve seen no change in the mucous.

A few other things of note, I have never once had congestion. I breathe as easily as ever through my nose. Also, I feel like I’ve ruled out anything environmental as my job has me splitting time between the dry upper Midwest and the pollen-ridden southeast with no change in my symptoms between the two.

Is there anything I am not considering? With all the neck, jaw and ear pain it seems like there’s a nerve component in here somewhere. I feel like I have made so many changes and nothing is moving the needle.

That’s a lot for one post, if you read the entire thing, thank you. If you’re in this group I wish you healing.