I LOVE IT. I was thinking about starting a thread like this two weeks ago, when I bought my first one and started using it.
I got me one of these handsome glazed clay numbers – mine’s got the dark iron-gray finish rather than the cheerful blue – so I feel like I’m doing a Japanese Tea Ceremony, except I’m pouring warm salt water through my sinuses instead of brewing tea.
Two methods are being discussed here. In the first method, the one that uses an actual neti pot, you have to bend over the sink and tilt your head. Then the water flows in one nostril and out the other, and doesn’t go into your throat.
The second method, my bowl method, takes water in both nostrils while you are bending forward. That way when the nasal passages fill the extra water runs into your mouth, where you promptly spit it out. Nothing ever goes down your throat and most definitely nothing can get into your lungs. It takes a lot–a LOT–of pressure to draw the water up into your nasal passages. You’d have to huff really, really hard to make the water go down your throat.
The feeling is actually very pleasant, I think, unless the salt concentration is too high. Then it burns a little.
Ok - forgive, please, my seemingly hopeless knobbiness, but how does it get from one nostril to the next? I cannot recall any time in my life that sniffling on one side resulted in drainage out the other, even when I was lying in bed with a bad cold.
To me, nostrils are like plumbing. Two individual pipes which open into the top of the throat - an area like a big cavern over top of a slide (throat) - kinda like this (but put a tunnel where the pool is) http://www.kirsanov.com/alina/waterslide.jpg
What I’m hearing with these neti pots and things is sounding like there’s a wall or tube or some roadway between the ends of both nostrils. And the throat in relation to this is where?
The trick is to think of the throat as a pipe with three outlets. One goes into the mouth, and above that, there are two more that go into each nostril. When you use a neti pot, one nostril fills, then the water flows into the top of the main pipe, and escapes out the other nostril long before it fills the pipe enough to reach the mouth.
Like I said, you have to be bent over and have your head turned, to make this happen.
I suggest you try it, then you’ll understand. You breathe through your mouth throughout the operation.
Thanks. I think it’s finally trying to sink in. Must be the congestion standing in the way 
Quiddity Glomfuster and Zsofia, please understand; there’s a place in the back of your nasal cavities that connects the two sides. It is far enough above the throat that the water does not get into the mouth or throat.
Before inserting the neti pot spout, you turn your head sideways so that one nostril is directly above the other. Put the spout in the top one, and the water runs out the bottom one. You breathe through your mouth the whole time. You don’t have to inhale to get the water through, it works on gravity. No drowning, no coughing, no need to panic. When the pot is empty, simply turn your head so you’re looking at the drain. Some more water will run out, then you blow your nose into the sink.
It takes less than four minutes, and most of that is waiting for the water to get warm and stirring the salt water 'til it dissolves.
It really works. After a lifetime of stuffy nose and sinusitis, I haven’t taken a Sudafed for months. The warm water loosens up dried and sticky snot, and the salt reduces the swelling.
But it’s massively less psychologically intimidating to use the Water Pik-powered system I mentioned. And you don’t have to tilt your head.
Just my wild guess, Doc, but looking at the link from above - it sort of looks like a slow, painful, method of drowning and that 1/4 mostly lied…I bet they took a look, thought about fluid going through their nose and said, “ya know, Vicks Vapor Rub works OK sometimes.”
We have a swimming pool at home. My SO learned to swim at an early age - but to this day, even swimming 6 months out of the year, for many many years, he still cannot, and I mean not for a second, put his head under water!
What do you think the chances are that he would seriously try this method?..but I bet you a million dollars he would lie and tell you he did and “it didn’t help.”
I guess you could consider the pot a gentle introduction to it ,my yoga teacher was more hard cord,just scoop up a palm full of water snort it up and spit out the mouth. Personally I don’t find it a usefull practice but it’s not really unpleasant,the key is use water at body temperature and the aproximately the same salinity as your bloodstream.
I use the SinusRinse product when mine are bad. It does seem to help, but only for the short term.
Thanks for all the input, everyone. I intend to ease him into it by using it first myself and demonstrating that it does not drown one. I don’t really have any sinus problems, but it has been awfully dry here lately, and maybe I’d find it soothing.
Not only have I never heard of this device, but I am shocked…SHOCKED, I tell you…to learn that so many people do it. Are there opium den-like places where you all sit around snorting saltwater and sighing orgasmically?
Gross. Really fucking gross. I am so rarely congested that I’ll never have a use for it, but even if I did, I don’t think I could get past the grossosity of the whole thing.
Personally, I use my own bathroom… but if the answer to this question turns out to be “yes,” I may have to check one out.
Good God, just the description is making me light-headed. I used to have chronic nosebleeds and the thought of voluntarily putting warm salty liquid in my nose is making me cringe.
I’m glad I don’t get sinus infections.
It’s nowhere near as gross as a sinus infection. I wouldn’t recommend a neti pot for the occassional stuffy nose. But, if the symptoms include severe headaches, sore throat and coughing from the infected mucus draining down your throat, nausea from the infected mucus accumulating in your stomach, not to mention the smell which in my case, ranged from peanutbutter/mothballs to sewage depending on the severity of the infection, a neti pot will become your best friend.
Yeah, I thought the same way too, back when I saw the entire neti pot thingie in my yoga books ( books, nary a DVD or VHS anywheres) and went “Gah!”
Then I saw the picture of a a guy doing something with linen from nasal cavity to mouth that I won’t go into detail about, but I damn near puked.
I now have SinusRinse and swear mightily buy it.
Join us, Kalhoun, you know you want too.
Okay, now I’m grossed out too.
Yeah, poor Mr. brown gets as sick as a dog. He gets very weak and cranky as hell. He has to take strong antibiotics that kill off his intestinal flora, so I have to buy him special yogurt drinks to replenish his protozoa supply. It sounds like no fun at all, so if this gizmo reduces the quantity of infections he has per year, I’m all for it.
Well, judging by the giddy experession on these peoples’ faces, I’d say yes.
For some bizarre reason, my sinuses are completely filled with… something. They weren’t sure, but suggested I try rinsing with the rubber bulb method. I tried it for a couple months, didn’t notice any difference, and developed chronic mild nosebleeds.
I use one and it feels gooooood.
Sometimes when I’m really stuffed up in one nostril, it collects back there, and runs into my throat, and then I have snot running out through my mouth.
But, it’s sort of salty snot, and it’s nothing more than anything I’ve experienced at the ocean. And you’re all a bunch of bogger-eaters anyway.
But, if you get the angle right, then if you’re clogged, it usually just doesn’t run out of the pot. The whole system just kind of sits there.
Clearing out gobs and gobs of mucous when you need it is really analogous to taking a great dump. It feels great. Tell your husband THAT. teela brown! Maybe you could get one with an NFL logo on the side or something.
