Sinus problems have unfortunately plagued me for the past few years. Though I used to be fine, the annoyingly frequent sinus infections worsened to a point where I’d get a few infections every year—usually accompanying a cold, and usually leaving me bed ridden. Different medicines and antibiotics have been prescribed through the past two years or so, but none have offered me any substantial success…so you can imagine my reaction when, last week, instead of prescribing me another worthless pill, my doctor brought a plastic transparent bottle and some packets of powder into the examining room for me to take home.
“Now I don’t recommend this to everyone, but you seem like the kind of person who would like this.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Or that’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I happily accepted a new hopeful remedy to my constant sinus problem. He instructed me to read the directions (a booklet of about 25 pages), try it out, and let him know if this works. I tried it out yesterday for the first time and have some news to report.
Though I love reading (I’ve done plenty of it recently), a 25-page instruction booklet was a little ridiculous…that’s not even good bathroom reading material. Instead, I read the condensed instructions printed on the side of the bottle.
Basically this 8oz plastic bottle needs filled with 8oz of distilled, hot water; the packet of powder (the actual medicine) must be poured and mixed in with the water. Now the interesting part: I have to rest one nostril on the bottle opening (it’s shaped to do this) and gently squeeze the bottle of water/medicine while inhaling, until the medication travels up one nasal passage and dispenses itself either out of the other nostril OR out of my mouth. I, obviously, must continue to breathe while doing this or else I’ll drown. After completing this step, I blow my nose into a tissue (though I can’t “pinch” my nose while doing so, or else I’ll “blow out an eardrum”). I repeat these steps for the other nostril, thus utilizing 4oz per nostril. I feel like I’m snorting a liquid version of crack or something.
I was actually uncomfortably excited about trying this, so I boiled some water, poured it in the bottle, mixed the powder in, stood over my sink, and began ingesting this toxin I had just created. Sufficient to say, the 8 ounces of water, the medicine, and plenty of other shit that was clogged up my nasal passage all drained out…either from my mouth or from my nose. And yes, it burned.
It worked though. I have never felt so clear, but I was also woozy as hell, so instead of departing to meet a friend in Oakland like I was supposed to, I was forced to lay down for 20 minutes.
Even though my nasal passage and my throat felt completely clear for once (I honestly couldn’t wait to try this ingenious process again), I discovered an unfortunate side effect later that evening.
After my late afternoon/evening in Oakland, I arrived to my parents’ house and offered to walk one of their dogs, Sofie, the big Burmese Mountain dog. As I leaned over to pet the dog, me AND the dog were both stunned as water and nasal juice quickly shot out of my nose all over the poor dog’s face.
I darted towards the bathroom—leaving a trail of nasal drippage along the way and began covering my nose with tissues. This did very little to help. After going through a couple of tissues, I ran up to examine this instructional booklet I earlier failed to read. I successfully found, “May cause nasal leakage after immediate use” written under “Side Effects.” Nasal leakage? More like a nasal waterfall.
Now I’m nervous as hell. I’m going to be out with friends, or simply out walking the dog, and water will begin to leak out of my face. It’ll be embarrassing, I’m sure; I’m just warning you all.
