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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