Getting a runny nose is not only gross, it's a real pain. Even if you feel mostly fine, having the sniffles makes you feel like everyone is looking at you and assuming you're super contagious.
It's a fair assumption, as a lot of the time people will touch their faces and then the runny nose germs get transferred to their hands and then to anything they touch, but when it's a constant thing, it just becomes frustrating.
People with allergies know this frustration all too well as they get this for months at a time. But for one man named Gregory Phillpotts, he suffered with a runny nose for years.
Phillpotts had asked doctors about it before. Several told him it was allergies, while others said either pneumonia or acute bronchitis.
The clear liquid coming from his one nostril remained an issue though, no matter what treatment the doctors attempted.
It wasn't until the leak got even worst last Thanksgiving that he started to get really focused on finding out what was wrong.
"I was preparing a meal and standing in the kitchen and it just added itself to the ingredients "” it screwed up the whole dinner," Phillpotts revealed.
After the condition continued to worsen and started to make him cough through the night, he did some research and discovered Dr. Alfred Iloreta at Mount Sinai. He made an appointment to see if he could find some other reason why this was happening.
Luckily, Iloreta was able to find the truth, discovering that the issue was that his brain fluid was actually leaking out of his nostril.
"It's the leakage of fluid that surrounds the brain to cushion it primarily to protect it from shock or trauma or anything like that," the doctor revealed. "Sometimes when you have this leakage of the fluid from the brain, it can evolve into what we call an ascending infection. So bacteria can travel from the nose to the brain resulting in meningitis."
They suspect that some kind of head trauma would have initiated the leak, but it was just a relief for Phillpotts to know what was going on.
"I was stuffing tissues up my nose," he said. "It became normal up until February because I was up all night coughing. You're sitting here, you're a family man; you don't want to check out of the picture when it's something someone could readily fix."
Iloreta was able to repair the leak by using a piece of Phillpott's own skin as a patch. After the surgery, he could breathe normally.
"You ever been so congested you can't breathe, and all of a sudden you can breathe again?" he asked. "You know what a relief that was?"
Hopefully, Phillpott's recovery goes well and he won't have to deal with anymore ruined dinners thanks to his runny nose!
Source - ABC11 / KHOU11 / Fox News / KDVR
