Friday, January 2, 2009

scary neti pot

J.Lo and I have both been pondering the neti pot for awhile now, and with this last cold, it seemed to be time. For him, not me. It totally freaks me out. Basically, you pour lukewarm saline water into one nostril (over the sink), and the water comes out the other nostril. Washes out your sinuses. I saw it on Oprah, back when I could tolerate Oprah (I’m telling you, TV makes me cranky anymore), and it’s bizarro. People swear by it, however, saying it all but solves their sinus/cold/allergy issues. And you know that uber-annoying feeling of having one nostril stuffed up, and no amount of tissue tricks will fix it? Neti pot. So they say.

So I say. I was drinking some wine the other night, and still with this lingering cold, all of a sudden I felt brave.  Had to try it. I could no longer abide by the one-nostriled squeak, and why not.

It totally works! Feels a tiny bit like you’ve inhaled water up your nose for a little while, but mostly you’re just all cleared out. You can breathe again. Freaky awesomeness. Now I know what Dwight K. Schrute was talking about.

 

DwightElf

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've heard a lot of people recommend it. Now that you've been brave I'll have to try it next time...hopefully far in the future. I hate the one-nostril thing.

~sarah said...

i've been hearing this from a lot of people lately. i even looked at a kit at target the other day, but yeah, it just seemed really, um, unnatural. and my sinuses do not drain well so i was worried the water wouldn't all come out and i'd get sick from that instead. hmmmm...... hmmmmm...... pondering. maybe. maybe.....

erin j said...

my folks use one all the time... it scares the hell out of me (huge fear of drowning...not nessacarily by neti pot, but nevertheless) but my dad was having crazy problems and no doc could figure out what was wrong with him. turns out (after 3 years of this stuff) he has a HUGE chronic sinus infection... antibiotics did nothing... got a neti pot and within a week...presto! so there.
good for you for trying it. maybe i'll get drunk enough to try it one day... but luckily (knock on every bit of wood) i haven't had a bad cold in a while.

penelope said...

It definitely requires some wine-inspired bravery. That was my biggest fear, that some water stay in there and... I don't know, mold? Get infected? Yikes! But so far, so good. Some people with allergies use it every day.

Where do they hide them at Target? I had to go to a regular drug store?

~sarah said...

i saw one in the same aisle as all the other saline nose spray/allergy meds section, top shelf. the box was smaller than i would've thought so maybe it wasn't the full kit, just the solution and hoses or something?

Anonymous said...

Yup, a friend has used the saline solution and said it really helped.
Since I very rarely catch a cold, and the allergy med seems to do the trick it will be some time before I consider such. Try drinking a nice strong cup of ginger tea.

Anonymous said...

My theory on the tv causing crankiness is that there are all of those darn commercials, and before the commercial they tell you how they are gonna tell you so much cool stuff when they come back, but it really isn't much and it is all such dribble. My word verification is "hypes" just like the tv shows and all the commercials and the merchandise they are hyping.

Andria said...

Awesome, glad you found some relief!
Does it drain through the middle to the other side or it somehow goes back and around? hmm. I always find it entertaining to lay on one side and feel your nose drain to the other nostril. and then flip and do it again back to the other side. having an apparatus that does this is a bit scary, though, I'll admit.

penelope said...

Hypes, what a perfect word verif!

It goes straight through to the other side. Fascinating. I tried it again last night, and frankly, I'm still freaked out. But feelin' good! And then N.Lo is so darn stuffed up in his sinuses. But I won't even discuss the possibility of a baby neti pot. Can you imagine? When they don't even like you to change their clothes??

JS Grame-Smith said...

I already heard of the use of netipot.
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Netipot