Nose hair trimming and allergies.

August 26, 2008 7:18 AM

Nose hair trimming and allergies.

I've been having some nose itch issues and noticed some extra nose hair, so I bought a trimmer and cleaned up in there. This turned out to be a bad idea as today my allergies are much worse than they've been all summer. Does trimming affect allergies? Google seems to think so. If so, do I just wait from them to grow back? Anyone know how long this typically takes?

posted by damn dirty ape to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Cutting off a few mm from the ends of the hairs to stop them protruding from your nostrils is not going to have any noticeable impact on allergies. Of course, if you've shoved the trimmer half way up to your brain it's conceivable that you've removed too much and thus reduced your nose's ability to pick up the offending particles.

The most likely thing is an increase in pollen count that just happened to coincide with your use of the trimmer.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:35 AM on August 26, 2008

Oh, and if your nose hair is anything like mine, it'll be back within a week.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 7:43 AM on August 26, 2008

As le morte said, you've probably got a confluence of events:

1. You've removed the hair that is designed to keep -stuff- out of your nose.
2. If you were too enthusiastic, you may have actually irritated the lining of your nose.
3. You've prob ably also seen a pollen spike.

All three things together could make for an unhappy nose.
posted by DWRoelands at 7:47 AM on August 26, 2008

Response by poster: Yep, I did go a little in there and the pollen count today is at "medium-high." Hopefully things will be back to normal in a week. Thanks for the insightful replies.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:51 AM on August 26, 2008

I find that the freshly cut nose hairs are what do the irritating.
posted by gjc at 7:13 PM on August 27, 2008