Unless you are blessed with living in a rather pristine environment you know that a lot of the time you are breathing air that is not so healthy. In fact a lot of the time you breath air that has a bunch of stuff in it. This dust in the air has some rather predictable effects: it irritates the nose and it causes swellling of the nasal passages.
There is kind of a cascade of events that happens when the nose starts reacting to “dirty air”. These things include swelling of the nose, a feeling like the nose is “stuffy” and often reaches the point where it’s just easier to breath through the mouth. If you remember ever having to breath through your mouth for an extended period of time you know that that was no fun.
So what is the best solution? Actually it’s rather simple: rinse out the “stuff” that’s in the nose and help the lining of the nose return to normal. The dilemma is this– what do you use to rinse out the nose? Plain water? Medicated sprays? Salt water spray? And if you’re going to use a salt water solution, what kind should you use?Many experts believe that you should use a solution that is not stronger than the salt concentration in your blood stream. Others believe that a stronger salt solution is more effective and the question is not firmly answered. I happen to believe that the stronger solution is more effective in not only irrigating out the secretions but also in decreasing the swelling that is caused by the stuff that’s inhaled into the nose.
I don’t want to give the impression that it is urgent that these dust and other junky air particles need to be removed from the nose. In fact the nose is able to clear this stuff out if left to itself long enough. The problem though is that many of us are exposed to the junky air a lot and the body’s ability to clean the nose out is overwhelmed.
So what strategy do you have to keep your nose cleaned out? If you don’t have one your nose is going to have some side effects from the stuff you’re inhaling. I suggest that the best thing to do is to make a home made nasal solution to irrigate out the junk in the nose. The added benefit is that there are no preservatives in the home made solution.
Why is it important to use a system that doesn’t have preservatives? Well unfortunately the preservatives themselves cause irritation to the nose and this irritation is enough to itself cause swelling. So when you use a home made solution that is free of preservatives you get the best of the irrigating and cleaning effect of the solution and at the same time you avoid the bad effects of the preservatives. This is a winning combination!
Learn more about nasal saline. Stop by Stanley Lang’s site where you can find out all about saline nasal spray and what it can do for you.
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The No Tech Lo Tech Nasal Spray
If you go to the store to buy a salt water spray, you will find a dizzying number of different strategies to try to get the saline into the nose. If the nose is really congested then it can be challenging to get the saline into the nose in the first place.
We have developed a very “low tech” tactic to getting the saline nasal solution into the nose: use the hand. You may read in some places that sniffing from the hand is not effective. I can assure you that these people don’t know what they are talking about. A big part of the uncertainty is that they often tell you to try to sniff up one nostril at a time. This does two things that are not helpful. First of all you have a harder time getting a effecitve mixture of nasal saline and air when you try to sniff up one side at a time. Second of all you miss getting the generous flow of the nasal saline into the nasopharynx because it didn’t go up both sides at the same time.
The key is sniffing up both nostrils at the same time. The second important fact to understand is that the nose is always lower than the mouth when you’re doing the sniffing. This makes sure that the nasal solution goes up both sides of the nose and into the nasopharynx which is the area of the throat behind the nose. This is a very important goal but unfortunately missed by most of the advice from sites that are trying to tell you how to use the nasal saline solution.
For many years our patients have been very succssfully using this practice. It is low tech and it is very effective, particularly when used with the saline nasal soltuion called “Rhinosnort”.
So if you follow these instructions you will be successful.
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One of the most common problems that people have to deal with is chronic nasal congestion. We all tend to take the simple nose for granted — until it isn’t working just right! When the nose is congested it is kind of like having a sore toe. It really gets your attention. This makes the difference between a good night’s sleep and a night of misery. The fact that there are so many different strategies out there is a sign that there really isn’t a good “solution” for this problem. We think that our “solution” is better than most of the other strategies out there.
One of the most common strategies for treating nasal congestion is by spraying something into the nose. what you may not know is that these strategies have a major problem: they all have to use somethign called “preservatives” to keep them safe on the shelf. Without the preservatives bacteria would grow which would be a major hazard to the user. You might say “so what?” Well the major problem is that the preservatives can cause the nasal problems themselves to get worse. In other words, the treatment may actually cause some of the symptoms that are attributed to the condition.
We have a “better nasal solution”. We can show you how to make a more effective nasal solution than you can buy in the store at home. When you make it at home you are automatically free of the side effects of preservatives because you don’t have to use preservatives.
Being free of preservatives is a really important issue when you’re trying to treat nasal inflammation. This inflammation could be from allergies, from a low grade infection or from inhaled irritants (like smoke) that are causing the lining of the nostrils to be irritated and subsequently swollen. If your nose is already irritated the last thing you want is another chemical that is causing even more inflammation. The good effect of the spray is offset by the bad effect of the preservative!
With our home made nasal saline solution the good effect of the spray (or as we more commonly use it — the nasal irrigation solution) is NOT offset by something bad. It’s all good. Can you see how important this is for somebody who is going to use this for the long term? Imagine every day using a treatment that is offsetting the benefit of the treatment! And the person doesn’t even know this is happening. He is just assuming that the symptoms he is having is caused by the condition he is treating and not the problem he is creating by the preservatives.
So we encourage you to use a “solution” that really works and has no negative down side. Be sure to use only preservative free saline irrigation treatments or saline nasal sprays.
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