Happy 2025

Though I’m laid up in bed having lost my voice

It hasn’t been an easy ride into the New Year. For the past 6-8 weeks, I’ve been struggling with some kind of sub-clinical thing that’s been making me feel totally lousy. This has come to a head it’s me losing my voice totally on the last day of 2024, and its the same on this first day of 2025.

I’m typing this in bed, on a portable Bluetooth keyboard linked to my iPad Mini 6. The reason I’m in bed is because its the easiest way for me to try and stay silent.

I’m also trying to get a grip on my histamine response.

You see, it’s pollen season here. And although I had a mild case of hay fever last year, it’s not something ie really struggled with before. But this year, I think it might be behind why I’ve felt so lousy, have lost my voice entirely, and have had multiple dizzy spells when I get up from sitting too.

I’m investigating a couple of things. I could only get a phone consult with my GP yesterday as I was too unwell to get to the clinic. But we will also be investigating another possibility.

Let’s go with an unlikely one first. Seeing as I have lost over 10% of my body mass recently, it could be that I am being over-medicated with thyroxine. However, it might be the unlikeliest abuse, as I’m on a pretty low dose anyway. We’ll Run a bunch of tests to see what we can discover.

The most likely cause is some kind of histamine response to pollen and environmental factors / diet that has got out of control. I have been exposed to a lot of pollen this year including hanging it under some pohutakawa trees over the weekend. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I lost my voice the day after this exposure. My throat and head have been clogged up with mucus with a nightly post-nasal dip wrecking my sleep too. My smart ring has also picked up that my nightly body temperature has been highly, almost every night for weeks now. That also suggests an inflammatory response to me.

So, I’m starting to tackle this with over-the-counter medications, including newly legalised psuedoephidrine based medications now available again in NZ. Let’s see how they do. The aim is to try to deal with the large amount of claggy phlegm my body is producing. I’ve also been eating too much processed meat this Christmas period due to excess ham in the house. Processed meats, nuts, avocado are all things I’ll cut back on for now as I try to get a grip.

There’s also another possibility: some kind of over the top cortisol response. But I think this is also a pathway from allergic response to my body trying to cope with that response. If I can get control / treat the histamine response, then cortisol levels should fall too. But this might also be contributing to my night time high temperatures and other symptoms too.

All best wishes for 2025, all 😀