You fill it with warm salty water and pour it into your nose. The solution runs through your sinuses and helps flush out tons of snot. It’s supposedly an Indian thing.
My MIL got my wife one, and we’ve both been using it for a couple of months now.
When you’re using it, and when you’re done, it’s kind of like being in the ocean. It’s a nice feeling. Clears you out. It really feels like it’s flushing out stuff you don’t want in there. It prefesses to help the linings of your membranes. I don’t know if it does that, but it does feel good.
How do you not choke? About 2 years ago, I suddenly lost the ability to prevent water from going up my nose and into my throat while swimming. Will I be unable to safely use the neti pot?
You can feel the water start to go into your throat. If that happens, you need to tilt your head further down.
Even then, big whoop. It’s just salt water in your mouth. . .you probably don’t want it there because it’s all snotty, but you kind of need to home in in the right angle.
I did it for each nostril this morning, and I don’t think I dissolved the salt fully because I’ve had salt crystals forming at the end of my nostrils all day.
I have an adapter that goes on a standard WaterPik™ and it does what a neti pot does except without the learning curve and mess of pouring salty water up your nose. On lowest setting, pumps water up one nostril and it comes down the other.
The sinus irrigation techniques described above really are just about the best thing out there for chronic nasal congestion, recurrent infections, and allergies. In many cases, one is far, far better off with a neti pot (or similar) than with using daily antihistamines, steroid nasal sprays, or decongestants.
Individual mileage may vary, consult your personal physician.
And make sure you get the salt concentration right (easy to do, just make sure you measure) or you can either dry things out worse (hypertonic saline), or cause more congestion (hypotonic saline).
I use one. As I’ve posted before, every once in a while it will give me a bad headache (which goes away as soon as I straighten my head). Its not really an issue for me and I find the neti pot very helpful, but my mom says it happens every time she uses it (so she doesn’t).
My sister and my father both swear by them. I don’t know what kind they use, but my sister said it takes some getting used to, she was totally grossed out at first. Both of them were mysteriously sick for months and months last winter, and so far this year, they’re both free and clear. Sounds good to me.
Pardon me whilst I Gush!
I use Sinus Rinse , which comes with pre measured salt packages and a nasal irrigator of the large size.
It is about $10 at many local pharmacies.
I love it.
The container is a perfect size and it is easier to store than a neti pot, which is really such a yoga thingie right now and way over priced. Who has room for a mini tea pot in the medicine cabinet? Until I found Sinus Rinse at the store this year, I was using an old Afrin container to do the flushing.(with just regular water.)
I like to use this in the shower and I swear that it cuts any colds down considerably.
Sometimes when I have a migraine, I will fill it with slightly warmer than usual water and just flush out the system. I am pretty sure it is helping relax the cramped brain a/o sinuses up there, if only temporarily. (I’ve often wondered if disintergrating an aspirin in the water and flushing my sinuses would alleviate a migraine faster…but…I will let someone else try it first.)
No one in my house will join in in the fun, though. (I took my Afrin with my on our Big Fat German Vacation last year and used it in the airplane bathroom. It was the first time in my life I haven’t gotten some Major Cold and Yuckiness while flying on a flight more than 3 hours. I also used SinoCare, which helps stop bacteria in the nasal cavity. YAY for germophobia!)
As a caution, do not do any rinsing within about a half an hour before bed. Any residual water in the system can end up in your ear tubies and, more likely, cause drainage down the back of your reclined throat, sending you to cough and gag.
Standard recipe is 2 cups water, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp sodium bicarbonate.
I’d suggest using kosher salt, or pickling salt, rather than iodized salt, which will tend to have a few other things in it too, to keep it from caking.
