Neti Pot
CVS
$100 / year
I regale anyone and everyone with my decades-long tale of chronic sinus infections, awful allergies, and a poorly performed Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS).
The surgery was supposed to be the silver bullet after seeing two ENTs for 1+ year. But I kept on getting sinus infections requiring antibiotics.
Finally, a third ENT who was a straight shooter just flatly told me that there is literally nothing better than using a neti pot to keep things clear in there.
Despite it being a simulated drowning, he's right. And the sense of drowning quickly diminishes with daily use. I often compare it brushing your teeth. If you made somebody start doing that after 25+ years of their life, they'd tell you to fuck off because it's laborious and unpleasant.
But I would be a far more miserable, less active, curmudgeon if I didn't start using one of these daily. Life transforming when you're effortless, easily fending off allergy issues and breathing fully through both nostrils.
My quality of life and quality of sleep is worlds better and the simplest of solutions: water + saline packet + squeezable neti pot during my daily shower where I also floss, brush my teeth, and use mouthwash.
There's important caveats to this recommended tool re: if you're on well water or something else potentially teeming with brain parasites. And I do buy new one's quarterly for good measure. But for many that danger is overblown and for everyone else a bottle of water and a neti pot is a much more valuable investment than another round of Allegra D or toughing out the pain or whatever you may be doing otherwise.
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