I just heard about these things. They’re called Netti Pots (or maybe Netty
Pots). You use them to “wash out” your nasal passages to relieve allergies
and sinusitus, supposedly. I’ve watched a few youtube videos of the process
and it freaks me the hell out. For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ir_sPjJFtc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm7YpxgOnA
shiver
Anybody tried this?
The doctor has my dh do that every morning-but with a plastic bottle thing, not a pot. Sometimes he has to add antibiotics of some kind. Pretty gross, but it helps him.
You can snork up warm salt water with good effect, too. Works like a charm.
Decades back a yoga teacher used a neti pot in front of me. I bought one, took it home and figured it out.
No problem.
My husband had a dickens of a time learning how to be passive enough to do it properly.
It took him well over a couple of years of persistent trying.
Before that he’d get headaches so bad from having mucus like cement in his sinuses that I’d end up hauling him to the emergency room.
Lambchop, I’ve heard people suggest to snort salted water but I don’t think its quite the same.
It was only after my husband learned not to try to snort the water that he got the neti pot to give him relief.
I use a rubber baby nasal aspirator. I only use warm water, I don’t add the epson salts or baking soda. Even in smaller than prescribed quantities, they burn my nasal cavity. For the longest time, I leaned my head back and that was like getting blasted with salt water at the beach. Leaning my head forward made it OK. Sinus infections have been reduced. I should do it on a daily basis but some days I’m just not up to it. During bad allergy and sinus times, I try to do this more often.
The salt water part of the yogic practise actually mildly cauterises the nasal membranes to make them less sensitive. This stings like all bejeepers for a while until you get used to it. This treatment can also actually cause your higher sinuses to plug up until you get used to the pain (guaranteed sinusitis for those of us who suffer from it regularly). I hadn’t heard of the netti pot, but have used a bulb syringe for similar practise.
Naturally, yoga practitioners don’t use a netti pot. They just mix a bit of water and salt in the palm of their hand and snort it. A more advanced yogic practise is to start a piece of string, soaked in water and salt, into your nose, snort it down to the back of your tongue, and work it out through your mouth. You can then saw the string back and forth to clear your nasal passages. If you are stupid enough to try this, you probably deserve everything that will come afterwards as a result.
<snerk>
djm
I use the plastic bottle, too. Not often, but when I feel a sore throat coming on. I’ve been over a year without a sinus infection for the first time in over ten years. Ragweed season’s upon us, so I’ll be using it more often for the next month or two.
If you have the salt/water mixture right it stings no more than tears or the saline solution one uses to put their contact lens in.
They might not use a neti pot because all they’re doing is adding saline solution to rinse out. They have already learned how to relax all the muscles that are constricting internal movement.
I used to think the salt water drew out mucus by nature of it being saltier.
Perhaps, but the perfect neti pot solution blend is the same as our own tears.
If you watch someone using a neti pot correctly you’ll notice they aren’t at an angle that the water is flowing up into the sinus cavity.
Capillary action might be at play here too.
My husband’s mucus wasn’t actually like cement but that’s an easy way to explain it to people who might marginalize the effect of a focus of muscles and the balance of nadis directing energy through them.
Using a neti pot is a lesson specifically in teaching the area effected with it how to act passively, let the water flow, not holding back.
We’ve all been trained to hold back to some degree. Some people snort snot all day (not realizing they’re sucking it back up) rather than simply blow their nose when ever the mucus has accumulated a bit.
Without some degree of holding back we’d probably all be walking around with the stuff dripping out of our noses like a bunch of little kids.
More health?
An ordinary adult’s nose produces up to 4 litres per day of mucous. Darn right we learn to drain internally rather than externally. 
I find even plain water stings like crazy. The pain causes the eyes to water and the sinuses to close up. Capilliary action has nothing to do with it.
This is a matter of hygiene. It is not my idea of fun.
djm
What do you do, exactly? Hold your breath and open the muscles
of the sinus cavity? Or do you exhale at the same time?
Relax, mouth-breathe, and let the water flow through. Relaxing is the hardest part, but essential to the process.
djm
Bingo!
Plain water IS going to sting like crazy. It lacks the sodium content level found present in body fluids.
i finally picked one of these up on a whim, and oh man, did it help with my latest headcold. i found it quite easy to make sure the water ran out of the nose and not into my mouth and there was no gagging (as I am wont to do…toothbrush anyone?)
two thumbs up 
I use saline spray, snort it out and spit method myself… It doesn’t sting and is a very good practice in my case, at least. In spite of my best efforts, I end up with wood powder in my nose at times from work. I have also cleaned my sinuses out in the shower - by leaning my head back and letting the water flow into my nose. It takes a time or two to become accustomed to it, but it works!
I use salt water. It’s called a Neti pot (not a Netti pot - Google might not find much if you spell it this way).
I’ve had sinus problems for years, but using a Neti Pot has let me breathe easily on a regular basis. I use it when I need to - started out at about once a week when I first got it, but less often as time goes on.
I don’t find it stings - I wouldn’t do it if it did. Well, I might… I’m puzzled that it freaks people out. It’s like getting a nose full of salt water at the seaside. Feels strange at first, but doesn’t half clear your nose. I imagine that’s how people first got the idea.
Takes ten minutes and makes me feel SO much better. My Father used to spend ten minutes blowing his nose every morning. Recently I was very nearly doing the same - until I started using the Neti Pot. Clear Sinuses! Hurrah!
You don’t suppose that’s Henke? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm7YpxgOnA
That’s one of the expensive ceramic ones. You can pick up a perfectly adequate plastic yoke for a couple of quid ($2 these days).
cute! I just us the shower…well not city water
Mr Izz uses one frequently, and swears by it. I have never tried it myself…
A friend recommended it’s use when he had a humdinger of a sinus infection. The antibiotics relieved it for a time, but his sinuses were so clogged, nothing would move for it to finally drain. Because of this, the neti pot was difficult to use at first…it wouldn’t drain into the sinus cavity and he would find himself with a mouthful of saline. One time, it even started to come out of his tear duct apparently. But he kept at it and it finally got everything moving around and the sinusitis finally subsided. He now uses it as a preventative about once or twice a week.
I can’t believe someone put videos on the Youtube for that. Talk about gross!!! 
it is an amazing world, innit?