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Sinus Rinse Nasal Irrigation
[UPDATE: 03/26/2008 11:02AM]
If you’ve been keeping up, you know now that I have discovered that wheat gluten can cause sinus symptoms. So, you may want to consider experimenting.
[UPDATE: 11/01/2016]
I eventually was diagnosed with, and started treating “Chronic Lyme Disease” (or something like that)
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After this post I’m sure I will be the blogger who talks about mucous more than any other. It truly isn’t by design. If you don’t want to read a gross post, I’d suggest not reading further.
In the mood for a gross post, are we?
I recently went to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist because it seems that I have a constant sinus infection: not so much the fatigue or sore throat, but an abundance of mucous that is yellow or green – especially in the mornings. So, I went to the ENT, and she stuck a camera on a metal pole up my nose. I didn’t think to ask her to record it so I could show it to all of the curious amongst you, but it was pretty interesting and thankfully painless. Turns out I don’t have any abnormalities such as a deviated septum, which would may cause surgery to repair. Instead, it’s likely allergies, and the futile standard treatment of Claritin (loratadine) and Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) just isn’t cutting it.
So she said she was going to introduce me to “sinus showers,” and I was thinking “yeah, I’ve had those wimpy saline things from the store, they don’t do much,” but instead she gave me this roughly 8-ounce bottle with a tube in it called Sinus Rinse, and tells me to fill it up with warm water and the Sinus Rinse mixture twice a day, and shoot pretty much the entire thing into a nostril, thus causing the contents to rush into my sinuses and out the other nostril.
It really is a pretty big bottle, too.
And yes, I’ve done it. Don’t believe me? You wouldn’t want to see it, it’s gross. No, really. Oh, okay, if you insist and you have a strong stomach, then look at this picture. When I’m done shooting the stuff up my nose, I’m supposed to blow my nose to get all of the excess out, but the doctor informed me that the most common side-affect is that throughout the day I may randomly have water shoot out of a nostril. Sure enough, this did happen while I was leaning over my guitar one evening.
Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I look forward to my “sinus showers.” I think I got a little too overzealous with it the first couple of times, because I was sneezing like crazy – there was no mucous to intercept allergens. The SinusRinse only came with a few packets, but thankfully the doctor informed me that I could just use 1/4 tsp. each of salt and baking soda, and that has worked fine. The doctor told me to try it for a month, and sometimes a patient’s body will just learn to make thinner mucous, but some people just have to keep this 3 minute ritual a part of their daily lives. Anyway, SinusRinse, or something like it, seems to be a pretty good sinus treatment that I was totally unaware of until last week.
[UPDATE: 07/11/2005 11:12PM]
I have been using SinusRinse for over a month now, and I can’t believe what a difference it makes. Sometimes I wake up feeling totally debilitated because I have so much drainage and congestion, and I am so glad that I have some sort of heavy duty nasal irrigation.
On tip I have found though: I was having quite a bit of abdominal pain when I first started using the SinusRinse, but it turns out it helps if you use fresh baking soda. I never thought such a thing could make one sick.
