Photo by Katherine Auguste
Remember Swimming Pool Nose?
In all the years of selling neti pots, I’ve heard one common theme from people who are resistant to nasal rinsing: the swimming pool! As a child most of us jumped into a swimming pool, pond or lake and got water slammed up our noses. It wasn’t pleasant. It burned and for a moment we were frozen in time with what one friend described as ice-cream-face.
The good news is: rinsing with a neti pot doesn’t feel like that at all!
First of all, let’s start with the water. Pure water is acidic to the sinus cavities and that’s the main reason it burned your nose as a child. In fact if someone told me they had a neti pot, water and no salt, I’d tell them not to rinse. By adding salt to the water you are creating a saline rinse that comes closest to the body’s blood pH and therefore won’t aggravate the sinus cavity. If you’ve added the appropriate amount of salt and found that it burns, you’re probably not using enough salt. Check out the proper water to salt ratio for your particular nasal rinsing device.
Secondly, water isn’t being slammed up your nose like it was when you jumped in that swimming pool. Gravity gently flows the saline solution in one nostril and out the other. There is no pressure exerted. Certain types of nasal rinsing devices do push water up your nose such as the waterpik or pressure positive bottle, but a neti pot does not. See our blog titled Nasal Rinsing History to learn about the different types of nasal rinsing devices.
If you are someone who is fearful of rinsing, I suggest you do a few things:
1. Have someone in your life who nasal rinses demonstrate it for you. You can also watch our instructional video.
2. If you do decide to rinse, make sure you use a mineral sea salt. Regular table salt is acidic to the body and needs to be buffered with baking soda. Plus it’s full of anticaking agents, stabilizers and often times iodine. A true sea salt is alkaline and doesn’t have additives. See our blog Why Salt Matters to fully understand this.
3. Call or email us!!! Some Baraka crew members were resistant to nasal rinsing and they’d be glad to tell you their personal story.
In the end, everyone has to make their own decision, but I encourage you to try it. As any neti pot enthusiast will tell you, nasal rinsing changed their life. If you have a great story about how you overcame your fears of the neti pot we’d love to hear it! Here’s a one from one of our stores.
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