Adventures in Nasal Irrigation

Okay, I’ll apologize right now. This is gonna be kinda gross.

I get lots of sinus headaches and am allergic to stuff. I’ve tried a few things for it, but lately I’ve been taking more and more pseudoephedrine, which kinda concerns me. I don’t want to be taking any drugs on a long-term basis. They don’t test for that.

So Oprah comes along and tells everybody about these amazing Neti pot things and suddenly they’re a big craze everywhere. You put some salt water in and pour it out your nose. Miraculously, you’re cured of all ills.

Now my dad’s a pharmacist. He’d pointed out these saline nasal misting things years ago and I’d use them sometime. They do something similar but with quite a bit less water. They’re also incredibly expensive, for reasons i can’t quite make out. But I have some experience with the concept.

The nasal mist thing never really worked out terribly well. Not nearly as well as the neti pot fanatics make out, at least. But I’d never really committed to it, and, like I said, there’s much less water involved.

So I get a little squirt bottle doohickey that came with little salt packets and decided to give it a go. This was Wednesday night.

Thursday at work, I started to feel like I was coming down with something. Last night I was pretty woozy and miserable. Today, I woke up with the left side of my head completely congested and some lovely yellowish-brown mucus. Yum. So I stayed home from work.

I’m trying to decide whether this thing gave me a sinus infection or stirred up something that was already there. Or I just coincidentally came down with a cold. I’ve decided I’ll keep going with the squirt bottle thing for at least a few days to see what happens.

I’m feeling a bit better now and think I kinda need to get out of the house. So I’m gonna go for a walk and listen to podcasts. I’ll keep you updated on what colour my mucus is tomorrow.