COVID-19 Precautions to Reduce Risk of Transmission and Illness

There are well-known basic protective measures to prevent spread of viral illnesses like COVID-19 including washing hands frequently, stay home, avoid touching your face, maintain social distancing, cleaning surfaces routinely , wear a mask , etc. However, there are also some interesting reports of other interventions that may provide further protection that one may not know about. 1) Published back in 2004, researchers noted that daily saline nasal spray  (plain old saltwater) use appears…

3/19/2020 0

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Suction Powered Nasal Irrigation

Most sino-nasal irrigation systems currently in use require passive drainage after flushing... typically into a sink. You squirt the saltwater into one nostril and the flush drains out the other side passively. However, there is a new system called " Navage " made by RhinoSystems that adds suction along with the flush. The upper chamber is where clean water is held. There are two nasal pillows that goes into each nostril. By pushing a button, the water gets mixed with salt and fl…

9/25/2016 0

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Amoeba Deaths from Neti-Pot Use and How to Minimize Risk

In the past few weeks, there have been numerous stories about the 2nd death in Louisiana from Neti-Pot use leading to an amoeba infection of the brain. The culprit organism Naegleria fowleri causes a life-threatening encephalitis after passing thru the nose and up into the brain where the organism eats neurons for food. As such, recommendations have been issued to use water as instructed with the Neti-Pot packaging... water should be boiled, distilled, or filtered. However, before the mi…

12/22/2011 1

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How to Make Xylitol Nasal Flush at Home

Given the unusually large reader response to my last blog regarding xylitol nasal rinses regarding the "recipe," I thought it easier to write a blog about it!!! To be brief, xylitol is a naturally-occurring plant-based sugar substitute that apparently has all sorts of anti-bacterial as well as anti-fungal properties. Given these properties, daily  xylitol gum chewing or  xylitol nasal spray use has been shown to help prevent recurrent acute  ear infections  and  sinus infection…

12/17/2011 35

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Xylitol Nasal Flushes Helps Prevent Chronic Sinusitis

Image by Aikhan from German Wikipedia Over the years, there has been much about how beneficial a safe food additive called xylitol is in preventing infections. This naturally-occurring plant-based sugar substitute apparently has all sorts of anti-bacterial as well as anti-fungal properties. Given these properties, daily xylitol gum chewing or xylitol nasal spray use has been shown to help prevent recurrent acute ear infections and sinus infections ... safe for use even in infants. …

12/16/2011 1

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Saline Nasal Flush - Mayo Clinic Video

Ever since our office produced one of the first videos on saline nasal flushes back in December 5, 2007, there have a been a number of additional videos created by medical offices and companies ever since. The most recent is Mayo Clinic which you can watch here . Here's our video we made back in 2007.

5/24/2011 0

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Baby Shampoo Used to Treat Chronic Sinusitis

Yes... It's absolutely true! There's even research on this (limited). The mixture ratio is 1/2 teaspoon of Johnsons No-Tears Baby Shampoo  in 8 ounces of saltwater rinsed into the nose using a sinus rinse bottle can help with chronic sinusitis , especially when there's a lot of crusting present and to which all other therapies have failed to resolve. The shampoo appears to work via several mechanisms theoretically: 1) It is directly toxic to germs 2) The soap action help…

2/26/2011 6

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LA Times: Neti-Pots and Other Saline Sinus Rinses Effective

The LA Times on March 15, 2010 published a story entitled " Are neti pots on the nose? ". The story describes the effectiveness of regular saline flushes to the nose in reducing as well as preventing allergy symptoms, colds , and sinus infections . Devices that can flush the nose/sinus include Neti-Pots as well as Neilmed Sinus Rinse. Electronic devices also exist (see below). Studies support this claim. Though patients can purchase saline packets, patients can make their own …

3/14/2010 0

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Saline Nasal Sinus Irrigation Systems

I must admit... our office is a big fan of the Neilmed Sinus Rinse bottle for patients who suffer from chronic sinusitis and severe allergies as it is cheap, easy to clean, and it works. However, many patients who are already fans of flushing the nose with saline water end up purchasing saline irrigation systems. There's a bunch of these devices sold on Amazon.com . Check them out below, but I would suggest that you first become adept and able to tolerate saline flushes using the Neilmed…

10/12/2009 0

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New Video on Pediatric Nasal Saline Flushes

A new video has been created showing a young child performing saline flushes to his nose without assistance. Indeed, kids older than 5 years are able to tolerate flushes without difficulty. A nasal saline flush kit using the Neilmed Sinus Rinse bottle is shown here. This video can also be found on YouTube . There are also devices that perform the same thing:

1/28/2008 0

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Allergy Medications Explained

A new webpage has been posted going over the different types of allergy medications in the market today. Given that there is plenty of information on the internet on the science behind how these medications work, the webpage does not go into the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, but rather uses terms hopefully a layperson can understand. Furthermore, small useful tidbits of info are given including differences between allegra and allegra-D not only in terms of medical benefit but also …

1/16/2008 0

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Video on How to Perform a Saline Sinus Flush

Given the dearth of video on the internet showing exactly how to perform a saline sinus flush using the NeilMed Sinus Rinse bottle, our practice has gone ahead and made one for educational purposes. It has been posted on our YouTube channel, but can be viewed below as well. Click here to go directly to the YouTube video. This link can also be found on our website here . Instructions on making your own saltwater using home kitchen supplies can be found here . Saline sinus flushes are gener…

12/05/2007 0

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