Hell hank I can't breathe at all, so if you can't breathe (via your nose)
you can't sleep, and you can't taste your food either, so I can't take them
period.

What's interesting is Rich mentioned one of the side effects being runny
nose which is just the opposite of stuffy nose IMO (and he's right - that is
also one of the side effects).  This is one of those weird things about
drugs.  Two of my other favorites are meds that can cause diarrhea or
constipation and drugs that can cause high blood pressure or low blood
pressure.  Another one is speeds up your heart or slows down your heart.  I
could never understand that, and it has always amazed me how someone's
metabolism could be that different - ie, I would think the pills (due to
their mechanism) would cause something in one direction only.

As far as the flomax.  Alpha blockers are smooth muscle relaxers which tend
to dilate blood vessels and this lends itself to swelling up your nose and
creating stuffy nose, which it does for me.  Decongestants are
vaso-restrictors which shrink nasal blood vessels and help to open up the
nasal cavities.  I don't know why alpha blockers cause runny nose.

Another thing I could never understand about flomax.  If it dilates blood
vessels and swells up your nose, why doesn't it swell up your prostate and
have a negative effect on BPH.  I believe the answer is because it is also a
muscle relaxer and apparently that overrides the blood vessels dilating, but
the two mechanisms seem to be juxtaposed.  I have tried to get an answer to
this in medical and pharma ngs and never could.  Forget asking your doctor -
all he knows is what the salesman tells him who drops the samples off at his
office.  I would bet that 8 or 9 out of 10 doctors have never read the
package inserts for the meds they prescribe.  I don't like doctors.  Sorry
for getting carried away...Pete