Don’t blow your nose, at least that’s what this article tells you. Can anyone explain how blowing your nose “can reverse the flow of mucus into the sinuses and slow drainage” and why it would be better to only blow one nostril at a time, if you really have to?
I’m also a little confused by pictures I’ve found that depict one’s sinuses. According to all the pictures, each nasal sinus is apparently sealed off from the other, which I guess makes the article’s point about only blowing one at a time. But if this is the case, why is it that when you have a stuffy nose and sleep on your side, the side against the pillow is always the one that’s harder to breathe from? It’s definitely more congested that the one facing up, and if you switch sides, in just a few minutes the stuffier one clears and the other becomes more congested. If they’re not in fact connected somehow, what’s causing the congestion and clearing to occur when you roll over?
Congestion usually isn’t caused by stuff sloshing around in your sinuses but by the swelling of the tissues lining your nasal passages.
True, but it seems perfectly reasonable that the pressure caused by blowing one’s nose could force mucus back into the sinuses. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone say it’s bad to blow your nose.
Here is the actual study for anyone interested, it was published 9 years ago:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/313661
“Contrast medium from the nasopharynx appeared in >1 sinuses
in 4 of 4 subjects after a nose blow but not after sneezing or coughing.”
Basically their experiment showed that blowing your nose while lying down can push/splatter the test fluid they used into the various sinuses. All the subjects in the test were healthy and not congested.
I think it is a large jump to conclude that blowing your nose will always be worse than not blowing your nose in the case of a cold without further study or information.
Might the virus spread throughout the sinuses on its own without nose blowing as a result of lying down? Is it possible that certain parts of the sinus aren’t as susceptible to the cold virus and could work to facilitate a faster immune response with exposure?
Anyone here not blow their nose when they get a cold? I personally can’t stand breathing through my mouth.
Something about my nose makes it that blowing my nose doesn’t seems to lessen the amount of goo coming out and just causes me to sneeze and my eyes to tear up and overall make the situation worse. So no I don’t blow my nose. I’ve only done so a few times in my life.
