Gustatory Rhinitis?

A-a-a-choooooo, A-a-a-a-achooooooooooooo, A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-achoooooooooooooooooo!

That's me most mornings, I rarely miss one these days. I usually - well bugger me, just writing about it has started me off [actually the caravan temperature has just plummeted because of heavy rain].

I know it seems unlikely but the above statement is entirely genuine, I'd just got out my little notebook in which I jotted this post [in real joined up writing] while sitting in the sunshine this morning, plumbed my zinc ii into the laptop to share t'interweb, arrived at this page & started sneezing.

Now where was I? Oh yes, I usually sneeze up to a dozen times, not your lady-like little atishoo, nope, these seem to come from my toes and work their way up and out, quite often with [sniff, blow] an interesting kick with my right foot, along with yards of ... umm, wet stuff.

I've had a couple of theories regarding the cause of this snottyness. Allergies being one -

YES! at last I've got an allergy! Ahem, you'll have to excuse this little moment of insanity, it's just a vestige left over from my early years when I seemed to be surrounded by whey-faced little individuals stating that they couldn't eat this or drink that, or go near such and such because of an allergy.

I wanted an allergy of my own! I have, in my dim and distant past been known to borrow my mums allergies at my most despondant non-allergic moments. Until one of my very impressed peers asked me what would happen if I had Penicillin by mistake and I replied 'Oh, I think I'll probably die'. Whereupon every attempt was made to find some Penicillin to experiment with - fortunately we didn't really know what we were looking for but managed to emulate a fair allergic reaction by rubbing in some Ralgex that we'd found, which was quite impressive as we didn't then know what Ralgex was.

Another time I was caught by my mum with an entire box of elastoplast stuck on different parts of my anatomy -
'What are you doing?'
'Experimenting' - couldn't she tell? I was wearing my new green school laboratory overall!
'Experimenting what?'
'I'm just checking to see if I'm allergic to plasters like you'
'Well you're not'
'But I might be'
She yanked them all off - nastily, I might add, leaving behind another very near impression of an allergy [and one or two bald patches].

Right, back to my sneezing - the second theory being a certain delicateness of my nose to anything maloderous - this conclusion was drawn because my sneezing bouts took on a regular pattern - I'd have breakfast, go upstairs and clean my teeth, do my other, ahem, regular ablutions, then - shudder, nose turns into a tap and the sneezes start. Several times my neighbour has shouted 'Bless You' through the wall if she happened to be on her way to or from their bathroom.

My grumpy old man read that some people sneeze when they think about sex. He invariably shouts 'Are you sneezing?' and I'll shout back 'Forget it'.

As I've already mentioned, I also start sneezing if the room temperature drops suddenly, this can be fairly embarrassing down the chiller aisles at Morrisons. My grumpy old man finds me by following the sneezes [he's always chin-wagging with other crumblies several aisles away].

Anyway, this morning I had my sultana & apple Oatibix, ten minutes later, I felt bloated and sick, then the sneezes started which were fairly painful as my stomach was too full.

Hmm, I'll check on t'interweb - google search - 'sneezing after breakfast' - ooooh, there's more than me with the problem and it's got a name - Gustatory Rhinitis and for other people it happens with every meal, especially with spicy foods [hmm, yes chilli with me]. I read a bit more, apparently - and they can't possibly mean me - it can be caused by overeating.

Aha, the light bulb flickers. For some reason when I have cereals, I'm greedy, I can eat more than the grumpy old man, whereas with toast, one slice is enough.

Tomorrow, I will be experimenting to see how much I can eat before I sneeze, what fun ...