“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”

- Audrey Hepburn

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Washing allergies away?

The Mr. and I got maliciously invaded by allergies the last few days. We were doing great, both happy to be done with our colds, and then WHAM ..... can't breath anymore. So off I went to Kaiser to go pick up those lovely allergy medications for us when I quickly became visually surrounded by various types of these ..
The good ol' Neti Pot. If you haven't heard of this contraption, it became increasingly popular about a year or so ago when Oprah had Dr. Oz on her showing raving and ranting about it. He had some studio audience members come up on stage, tilt their heads to the side, and basically pour some water from the pot into one of your nostrils.

Basically, the poor guests looked like this:

scary, huh?

Everything I read about Neti Pots is positive. I seriously don't think I can recall seeing one bad thing about these. They are at health stores, at pharmacys, Targets, etc. and are the new "in" thing when it comes to cleaning out the bad stuff. The good ol' Oprah effect. I never would have guessed that she could get people to consciously pour water into their noses and have it come out the other nostril, only to get everyone to fall madly in love with the product.

Here is my dilemma: I am scared of these things! I just feel like it is so odd that I'm not sure it is worth buying?

I always come up with weird little ideas and fears, over-thinking little things and constantly debating. My first thought is, what happens if you start laughing when you pour it in your nose? Do you start spraying it everywhere like a kid shooting milk out of his nose because of uncontrollable laughter? This is what I always think of when I see these things! I know that probably won't happen, but come on ... haven't you thought the same thing? (Just smile and nod people)

I just don't know if I have the guts to try this out. Then again, I feel so miserable at this point that I will probably give in. Every year around Feb/March I get terrible allergies and they usually turn into infections if I am not careful.

Has anyone else tried these little suckers? How were they?? And if you have laughing stories... please share :) Haha

4 comments:

  1. I wrote about this thing on my blog a while ago:
    http://alberico.net/wp/2008/11/16/neti-pot

    Basically, you feel like the biggest dork, then you start to do it, get relief and get over how lame you feel for doing it. it does take a little getting used to the process (remember to continue to breathe normally and slowly through the process).

    I swear the relief is QUICK, i'll have a headache, take aspirin then realize, yeah this is not a normal headache and think, oh yeah neti, I flush (unless you're plugged up then there's no chance) and literally within 5 - 10 minutes pressure and headache are GONE! It's magic (or just warm water and table salt).

    Also i've stopped buying the salt packets and just use morton's, it's much cheaper.

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  2. oh yeah, forgot to mention, haven't had a sinus infection since, probably because of the early flushing. It's also awesome after working in the yard / mowing!

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  3. I myself have wanted to try one of these but haven't been brave enough either. All I have heard though is that they work great, and that once you use it, you will wish you would have done it sooner. Good Luck, and if you try it let us know how it worked! Hope you get some relief. :)

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  4. kaiser sells a "sinus rinse" which you use by squeezing a bottle of warm salt water into your nose. i love it. it *really* works.

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