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Tuesday,
March 29, 2005
Holy rinsed sinuses, Batman!
When last we saw our heroine, she was sprawled on her couch because every time she sat up the world went WHEE around her. This morning, I got in to see the doctor and he gave me a scrip for a Z-pak. He also told me to start overdosing on the saline nasal spray, because if I couldn't open up my sinuses and shrink them down, I could pop antibiotics from here to eternity and they wouldn't do bubkes.
So, like a good patient, I went to the drugstore and, while waiting for my scrip to be filled, also got the big bottle of saline spray. However, as you may remember, I'd also been considering getting a neti pot. (cribbed from a website) "The practice of nasal cleansing - known as Neti - has been used by practitioners of Ayurveda and Yoga in India for thousands of years. Neti is one of the 6 purification techniques performed prior to practicing yoga as a way of preparing the body for the yoga practice. While there exist advanced techniques using various herbal oils and herbs, the simplest Neti technique uses water for the irrigation process. Lukewarm water is used to gently cleanse the nasal passages. A soothing, gentle stream of salt water, the same concentration as tears, flows through your nose, washing away pollens, mucus, viruses and bacteria. Use of a neti pot is recommended to ease this process."
In other words, you fill the pot with a lukewarm saline solution, stick the spout in one nostril, tilt your head so that the nostril is right over the other one, and pour the water in. It rinses out your sinuses and drains out the lower nostril. Yeah, I know, but I was desperate. I actually thought I'd have to buy a neti pot on line, since I couldn't think of a place I could find one around here. However, three cheers for American g/r/e/e/d/ ingenuity -- right next to the bottles of saline spray in Walgreens was a long box with the label SinuCleanse and the picture of what I immediately recognized as a plastic neti pot on the side. Of course, the makers of Sinu-Cleanse claim that this is a procedure developed and tested by doctors, and you should only buy the Sinu-Cleanse saline packets for use with the Sinu-Cleanse (bugger to that -- I'll get some organic sea salt, much cheaper in the long run). I'm sure various yogis would like to have a chat with the marketers about copyright and the history of yoga.
In any case, I took it home, loaded it with the salt and warm water, and WHOA. It's exactly like the sensation of getting water up my nose when swimming, except that it doesn't sting with chlorine and I'm letting it drain out the other side of my nose. I was also somewhat amazed (and grossed out) at what came out of my sinuses -- no wonder I have an infection.
In any case, I'm going to be doing this as a nightly thing along with brushing my teeth. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, it has on my allergies.