Medical Issues Due to Sock Sniffing?

Some time ago, a kinky friend sent me a link to this article: Did a Guy in China Really Get a Lung Infection from Huffing Sweaty Socks? It was more as a joke, but little did he know, I actually am experiencing a minor medical issue of my own, and it could possibly be due to my sock sniffing.

Fortunately, my medical condition is not serious, life threatening, or contagious. I was not diagnosed with the same condition mentioned in the article (and to be clear, the article is not 100% sure it was truly caused by him sniffing socks… just strongly suspected.)

For privacy reasons, I don’t want to go into too much detail with what I have specifically, but I have been diagnosed and I can say that I do feel totally fine and healthy, except that I can experience some of the following: constant nasal congestion, constant sneezing, constant coughing, and occasional shortness of breath. To the point where people are continually asking if I’m sick. Which, aside from my relatively minor condition, I’m not. But outwardly, I do exhibit symptoms as if I am. And this has been going on in small ways for about a decade, but it’s really been amping up for about the last 8 months or so, to the point it’s disruptive of my regular life. I can hardly hold a conversation without either sniffling, sneezing, or coughing through half of it.

Like the man in the article, it’s really not sure if this was caused from sniffing socks. There, the man had a fungal infection on his feet, which, at least as far as I know, I don’t have (although they can get very smelly, so I suppose there is a certain amount of fungus). But as you do know, I do often like to keep smelly socks sealed in ziplocs, and I do wonder if fungus and perhaps even a bit of mold could be a cause?

It’s really hard to say. Despite what you may think, I don’t lie around smelling my socks, shoes, and feet every day for hours on end. Typically, just a quick sniff or two at the end of the day will satisfy me. It’ll sniff longer in a fully sexual situation, but even then, it tends to be a “grand finale”, and usually isn’t on for more than 10 minutes before I’d cum. And since I have been married a long time, sex isn’t all that often, lol. That said, those quick sniffs at the end of the day are something I’ve been doing daily for decades, so who knows? It may add up over the years. All I do know is that they usual reasons people get the condition I have do not apply to me whatsoever. This is the only explanation I can think of.

Because I’m not shy about this, and I figure doctors have heard everything, I asked my doctor if he thought this could be a cause. He admitted he really didn’t know for sure, but wouldn’t be surprised, and did request I stop doing it. Well, we all know that won’t happen entirely, but I am trying to at least not do daily quick inhales to see if that’ll help. I am also now on medication, but I was warned the medication will take a long time (months) before it starts to take effect. Fortunately, the medication has been more effective than I expected it to be, and I’d say in less than a month, my condition has nearly completely cleared up. I have a follow up appointment in about a week, but I imagine it’ll go well.

So I should be okay, but I will say now, if you are a constant smelly sock sniffer, and you may be exhibiting some of those symptoms I listed above, you may want to get checked out. Frankly, it took a long time for me to get my diagnosis, because it’s generally not super common, and lots of other diseases exhibit similar symptoms, so we had been trying a lot of other treatments before we realized what I had (it took some x-rays to confirm it). But I did want to share my story… if I even help one person, that’s enough for me.

UPDATE ALREADY (Because I wrote the above post after my first visit to the doctor, and I’ve since had a follow up): After just a few weeks, my symptoms have nearly completely vanished! We still need to keep an eye on things, as he did say that there is a possibility it could return. But he did also say that he looked into things a bit more, and he feels it is very likely that the daily sock sniffing of very old, unwashed socks may have in fact caused this. So I will, sadly, have to cut back. I’m not going to give it up entirely, but I do need to be more selective about how often I do it, and daily sniffs (which were admittedly very brief, so it won’t really be that hard to give that up) need to be shelved for the foreseeable future. While I’ll miss it, I’m enjoying a life without all those symptoms much more.