I did it. I survived a swollen uvula! It was an ordeal, a trial, a time that tried a man's soul, but I resolved perseverance and pulled through to the end.
When I first moved to Denver from back in the Midwest, I could definitely tell that the altitude had something to do with the way I was feeling. I would have to pause half-way up a flight of stairs to catch my breath and wait for my heart to slow down. That lasted about a week before I became acclimated. Oh, did I sleep well those first weeks in the Mile High City or what! I also made sure to keep a bottle of water with me because I got dehydrated very easily (the climate in Denver is actually like a desert, a far cry from the humid summer days back home). This was all and well and I found myself enjoying the adjustment to my new surroundings: wake up around 7:00 (that's very late for me), go about my daily work, squeeze in a walk, dinner, watch the news, in bed by 9:00. I even got adventurous in my explorations and tried a couple of hiking trails in the afternoons or after dinner. That was fun because I got to learn the birds and wildflowers of the Colorado high plains that way; this was all before I started exploring the mountains, but that is a whole other subject.
Anyways, I liked my new city and was getting used to life 5280 feet above sea level. Then, one day it hit me in late August. I woke up one morning and felt a huge gob in my throat. Now, I grew up suffering terrible hay fever every August. Around the 15th of the month, I would get that first tickle in my nose, which turned into a sneeze, and then my eyes would tear up and burn, my ears clog, my nose incessantly drip and run and itch, I would sneeze more than I could talk, and I was utterly miserable for at least two weeks. Growing up, I tried every hay fever and allergy medicine that they made. Seldane, Benadryl, Claritin and Allegra (back when they were prescription), Clarinex, Zyrtec, and Sudafed. I tried nasal sprays, eye drops, herbal teas, and homeopathic tinctures. I tried chiropractic. I tried Chinese medicine. One medication would work for one year, then the next year it was ineffective and I was on to the next method. I grew desperate and would try anything whenever August rolled around.
O God, why didst Thou create ragweed?
So, when I felt that lump of goo in my throat, I thought to myself, "Oh, great, allergies!" At least hay fever is a known quantity: I knew life was going to suck for a few weeks and more or less how I could survive: patience, a few good books (the Bible), a lot of prayer, and whatever new remedy I could find that year. I went about my morning routine, made a pot of coffee, and tried to hawk up the ball of phlegm that was in my throat, but I couldn't get it out. I squeezed and contorted my throat and made all kinds of funny noises trying to get that loogie out, but it wouldn't budge. I decided to go into the bathroom to see what was going on and looked in the mirror.
To my shock, my uvula (the hanging thing in the back of your throat) was swollen to the size of my thumb and throbbing red and laying on the back of my tongue and tickling it. I would see how I thought that it was a loogie. That was not my concern, though. I saw it and thought to myself, "How did it get so big?" I could have bitten it with my back molars if I wanted to.
Apparently, a swollen uvula is caused by several things, one of which is dehydration. I spent an hour reading all that I could find on the subject on the internet before I figured out how I was going to tackle it. The recommendation was drinking a lot of ice-cold water and gargling with salt water. I did this for three days and it went back to normal. I never did get allergies that year, nor any other year since moving to Denver. No hay fever for me!
So, the remedy that worked best for my swollen uvula was a salt water gargle twice per day and plenty of cold water. And try not to yawn in public- it draws too many questions about your uvula! If only curing hay fever were that easy...
http://www.swollenuvula.org/
http://www.swollenuvula.net/
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