Rhinitis — The Eight Faces of a Runny Nose
One of the commonest OPD complaints, finally made systematic. A single framework that works at the bedside in your clinic and in the exam hall.
Why This Guide
“Runny nose” hides eight distinct diagnoses, and students lose easy marks because the types blur together. This guide untangles them in the order you actually meet them — allergic and vasomotor first, down to the rare rhinitis caseosa — with the exam-favourite traps (paradoxical obstruction, the medicamentosa-vs-drug-induced distinction) spelled out clearly.
It is built to do double duty: prevalence-first reasoning you can use in everyday general practice, and the high-yield discriminators NEET-PG loves to test — closing with a set of AIIMS-level clinical-reasoning MCQs and worked answers.
What You’ll Learn
- The eight types at a glance — ordered from most to least common in real practice.
- Allergic rhinitis, end to end — pathophysiology, the United Airway concept, clinical signs examiners love, diagnosis and stepwise treatment.
- The look-alikes, separated cleanly — vasomotor, chronic simple, medicamentosa vs drug-induced.
- The crusty-nose group — atrophic rhinitis (HERNIA mnemonic), rhinitis sicca, and rhinitis caseosa.
- The 3-question OPD shortcut — How long? What pattern? What associations? — mapped onto all eight types.
- 5 AIIMS-level MCQs with full reasoning to test yourself.
