Nose Wash

… working at the Nose Wash, yeah

[This evening my kids have been listening to several CDs worth of 70s and 80s tunes packaged as "Pure Funk", so that's my excuse. Up next: Kung Fu Fighting!]

Anyway. Tonight I want to tell you all about sinus irrigation. AKA nose washing. Come on, everybody!
Here’s the reason for my little spiel. As you may know, I’ve been sick for several weeks now with this winter’s edition of the Endless Creeping Crud. In fact, nearly my entire family has had it; all of us except SYTU, who inexplicably remains unaffected. I dunno; maybe it’s the rigorous diet of Marshmallow Mateys cereal, Sour Apple Altoids and Canada Dry seltzer water that’s making him immune. Hunh.

With me, the particular path of mutations this malady has taken over the course of the last month is thus:

Starts out like the flu: you’re suddenly socked with body aches all over; extreme fatigue; chills and fever; nausea. This lasts about 4 days.

Then it morphs into a massive chest cold. No, not a massive chest –shut up, Beavis!
a massive cold in the chest; lungs filled with phlegm; paroxysms of coughing so severe that each time you cough little stars pulse like strobes behind your eyelids. You have this for four days and then laryngitis also sets in; you have laryngitis for another 3 days.

By this time you have probably gone to the doctor and gotten a prescription for antibiotics. You take the antibiotics and after about three more days you’re starting to feel halfway, borderline, just-maybe like you’re gonna survive. You made it!

But now here’s where the thing gets really insidious. Just as the lung congestion and laryngitis vanish, you feel yourself starting to sneeze; your eyes squinch up and start watering; your nose starts running, and within about 12 hours you are in the grip of a monster head cold.

For four more days, you can expect that your head will feel like a giant brick stuffed with cotton batting and library paste. Each night you mix yourself a Sudafed and Nyquil cocktail and add a Robitussin chaser, in an attempt to get 3 or 4 hours of fitful sleep.

The whole sequence of events by this time has gotten Old. Real Old. It is at this point where, if you take my advice, you will do yourself a gigantic favor and add one quick, painless routine to your day; a routine which will make you feel instantly better — about 1000% better. And no drugs involved.

My doctor recommended something that worked so well; worked such wonders, that I’m now become the wild-eyed lunatic standing on the streetcorner preaching the miraculous powers of the ancient art of nosewashing; Sinus irrigation. In the yoga tradition it’s called jala neti.

So. How do you wash your nose? You start by getting yourself some kind of a neti pot. A neti pot looks usually like a little teapot; you can get neti pots made out of a wide variety of materials, from ceramic to porcelain to stainless steel. Then you put 8 oz of lukewarm water in the neti pot and add to it 1/2 tsp. of salt [ideally use sea salt, or rock salt - - no iodine] and 1/2 tsp. baking soda. Mix this solution until the salt and soda are completely dissolved.  Voila –  What you now have is an isotonic saline solution [isotonic meaning, roughly , a solution with the same saline level as human blood.]

It’s a good idea to stand over a sink at this point. Now you put the spout of the neti pot into one nostril and lean forward slightly over the sink. Tilt your head over to one side, so that the nostril with the spout in it is directly above the other nostril. Tip the neti pot, and the saline solution will flow into your sinus cavities and work its way through to the other side of your nose, where it will come running out of your lower nostril and into the sink.

Breathe thru your mouth and lean forward slightly to keep the saline from going down the back of your throat. Empty the full potfull of water into your nostril.
Then, mix up another 8 oz of saline solution, and repeat the procedure in your other nostril. Altogether, the whole process takes about 5 minutes. Blow your nose gently afterwards.

Now, marvel at how much better you feel. And with no prescriptions and no OTC medicine whatsoever. Do this every morning, and again at night before you go to bed, and I promise you, — you will take at least two or three days off your total cold recovery time. The sinus irrigation/nosewashing not only washes dust, bacteria, mold spores and viruses out of your nose and thins mucus secretions, but also cleans and moisturizes your nasal passages so that the cilia in your nose work at top efficiency to catch and clean out all sorts of crud-bearing germs.

To make it even simpler, go to the nearest Walgreen’s and plunk down $14.95 for something called SinuCleanse. The SinuCleanse system combines the most practical type of neti pot – - one that’s unbreakable plastic and dishwasher safe, with handy pre-mixed packets of salt and baking soda.

It’s simple; and easy; and fast; and it works wonders.  Do it.