I think I have some changes happening regarding health and well being types of things. I’m getting older, you start to realize you aren’t as spry as you once were, you start to question some habits, and wonder about what you can change. I think I’ll be writing more about that, in the days to come, because after a conversation with Margie, and inspiration from Dooce, I am looking at my diet, and following Dooce on her cleanse.
But as an aside, on that self same post, she mentioned a neti pot, which is something I first read about on Velcrometer, and have kind of wondered how it worked, what it did, etc.
It’s not that my sinuses are really horrible, or that I have a life time of allergies conspiring to take me down. I do notice more in the last few years that pollen season is uncomfortable, and smoking leaves me constantly congested, and add to that that I have fallen victim to what a DuPont employee friend refers to as the Delaware drip.
Now MY DAD – well, there are some bad sinuses for ya. When I was a kid you could hear him blow his nose from one end of the State to the other (in fairness, it was Vermont, which is smaller on the scale of state sizes), and he constantly had at least one hankie going, which my mom would keep laundered, but I doubt she ironed, but she may have. My most vivid memories of dad and his hankie habits are of sitting in the back seat of the car, while he would drive with his hand out the window, hankie draped over it, drying it in the wind. I think, but I’m not entirely sure, that he would also sometimes dry his hankies on the radio antenna at high speed. This habit, I believe, was peculiar to my father, and I believe one of which my mother was far more tolerant than his habit of coming to the dinner table in his boxer shorts.
Aaaanyway.
As part of this overall health focus deal, I started thinking about the health of my nasal passages, the congestion, the snoring, the occasional sore throat, and the fact that smoking has, let’s face it, left years of gunk in my head and lungs. (By the way. I’m not ready to jump off the quit smoking bridge just yet, but this is step one for me).
So yesterday I stopped by a local pharmacy and asked about the neti pot. They had two options in stock. The first was like a small plastic teapot, (short and stout, handle, spout, etc.) which came with saline packets that you mix with water and pour into your nostrils. The picture of the woman on the package was very smiley, as she poured water in one nostril and it came out the other, but that might be because the water just loops through where she’d had her lobotomy.
The second option was a bottle with pre-mixed saline solution in it. This one has a whatever the option of suction mechanism is, sort of an accordion bellows that you push in and it forces the water up your nose. Not really an accordion bellows… You know the mechanism you use to make to make certain match-box cars race, or at least you did in the 70s, sort of a cylinder of air with folds in it, and you push on it and force the air out, and the car takes off?? Like that. But on the side of the bottle, forcing the water up your nose.
I chose the second one, largely because it looked more like something I could handle, like I may chicken out pouring water up my nose, and I still can’t figure out quite how that model works. I also wasn’t sure about the mixing required by the other one, and didn’t want to come home with a thousand little packets of saline solution, which, if this experiment failed, would point their little fingers at me for years to come. This model I could just throw out if I didn’t like it.
All atwitter with excitement to try my new purchase, I hurried home.
Now part of my interest in this had to do with understanding just how this thing worked.
I failed miserably on my first attempt. It says RIGHT ON THE BOX, don’t inhale. But I’m no Bill Clinton. The solution went right down my throat, and was gross, sort of like a deluge of post nasal drip.
So I tried again with the other nostril, this time, leaning forward, not inhaling and HOLY COW! Nothing went down my throat, but it was a little akin to getting pool water up your nose. I had to blow my nose several times afterward, and the gunk you would expect came out in copious quantities.
I did it again before bed, and this time it worked like a charm. Still the burning of sucking pool water into your nose, but not unmanageable. The water didn’t drain out the opposite nostril, like the box showed, but a couple of quick blows to get rid of the residual snot, and I was off to bed.
As I slept I was vaguely aware throughout the night of breathing through my nose, which I haven’t done in years. I woke up at five thirty this morning, sinuses clear, feeling remarkably rested. When Scott got back in bed for his early morning nap, I asked how the snoring had been, and he said he didn’t think I’d snored.
This morning while rinsing I think I got the right amount of pressure on the vacuum button thingy, because I didn’t have the chlorine in the nostril sensation AND? Water and snot drained right out my other nostril, just like it’s supposed to. I had to scramble for the paper towels.
Vote on the neti pot is a thumbs up, and a look to the title of this post will reveal that I keep my promises.
