1. Identify Whether You Have Vasomotor or Allergic Rhinitis
While specialists who study vasomotor rhinitis still don't know what actually causes the disease, patients experiencing potential symptoms (including fatigue, rhinorrhea, sinus headaches and pressure, and congestion) can take measures to determine whether their rhinitis is vasomotor (generated by extra sensitivity in the nasal membrane and the blood vessels which line the nasal passages) or allergic (caused by environmental factors or other allergens).
If your rhinitis symptoms hit at a particular time of year, for instance, when pollen counts are high, you probably have allergic rather than vasomotor rhinitis. Similarly, if you can identify any particular trigger, such as pet dander, mold, medicines, mites or nut extracts, that causes your watery nose, postnasal drip and headache, then you'll likely to have the allergic type of rhinitis. If, on the other hand, your symptoms occur year round or don't seem to have a trigger, and if you and your doctor can't figure out any other direct or proximal causes, then you may indeed have the vasomotor variety.
A key difference between these two types of rhinitis is that vasomotor rhinitis involves sensitive blood vessels, while allergic rhinitis involves an immune system response.
2. Hormones, Age and Other Factors
More than five percent of Americans have been diagnosed with vasomotor rhinitis. Breaking down the statistics further, you will find that allergenic rhinitis usually first manifests in patients younger than 20, whereas vasomotor rhinitis often appears in adulthood. Women suffer from the condition more often than men. Thus, clearly some hormonal and age-related factors are at work. It remains to be determined what role, specifically, these factors play in causing the nasal membrane sensitivity.
3. Cutting-Edge Ideas to Determine Cause
To get a clear understanding of how and why the nasal membrane develops sensitivity and more blood vessels than necessary, some specialists have been looking at genetic predispositions of patients. Others are examining patients across cultures to determine whether race, nasal membrane shape and other sundry factors may be to blame. Still others contend that high rates of co-morbidity between allergic and vasomotor rhinitis suggest that there may be some kind of cause-and-effect relationship between these two forms of rhinitis.
