For sinus relief, I like Rite-Aid nasal spray in the pump bottle. The squeeze-bottle delivery skeeves me out. I mean, this thing has just been up my nose. When I remove it, it starts sucking in air through the hole that was in my nose. So the next time I use it, I get oxymetazoline HCL and nose germs!
I’ve been to two Rite-Aid stores (one of them more than once) in the last month and they do not have the pictured spray. The tag’s there on the shelf, but not product. I just checked the Rite-Aid website, and it’s not available there. They still carry Afrin in the pump bottle, and they still carry the store brand and others containing oxymetazoline HCL.
Strictly speaking, those “nose germs” were, uh, already in your nose. Whether you are referring to a particular strain of bacteria or a particular bunch of viral particles, there were probably millions or billions of instances of those “germs” in your nose.
Reintroducing them the next day is not going to do any harm unless there was a way for the bacteria (if it was bacteria) to grow in the squeeze bottle. Since the solution doesn’t have any nutrients (no sugars or minerals), the bacteria aren’t going to grow. They’ll probably wait quiescent for you to put them back where they came from.
As long as you are the only user, this is a non-issue.
Always, always, always sterilize the nozzle before and after using anything you stick in your nose! Otherwise you’re just reintroducing what you’re trying to get rid of, with each use.
Rite-Aid nose spray is the only stuff affordable and that has worked for me since, well, mid to late 90s? I noticed last year suddenly all the mist type disappeared. Then I noticed it came back. I typically preferred the mist style with camphor, but not the “severe” green because it was TOO minty, and too goopy. It finally came back and notice they had changed the boxes and color. My type was now the mist spray in the orange bottle. As a backup, I could usually just by the greyish blue non-mist and transfer it into my old mist bottles which I kept. No big deal, just a simple re-branding? Right? This was late summer, fall 2013. They found there way back on the shelves and everything was fine until just the last couple months. Suddenly I cant find my orange label mist, the non-mist that was basically the same, has changed, and the list of inactive ingredients has changed on the severe. Now there is a terrible chemical smell/taste, and the non-severe that is available has barely any camphor at all with a different background smell.
It sucks relying on this crap, but it sucks worse that just like politicians, some product manager has too much time on their hands. I thought it was in my head until I found a bottle of the orange I had forgotten about and was able to compare side by side. Yes, nasal spray conspiracy is afoot at rite-aid and it pisses me off. Not sure what anyone can do other than vote with their wallet.
