Quick Relief with Nasal Saline Spray

If you go into a typical store in search of a treatment for your nasal symptoms, you will find a dizzying array of options to treat your nose. Many of these are strategies to get saline into your nose. The most common of these is a nasal saline spray. Another method is to lay upside down on your bed or mattress for the saline to penetrate better.

The development of the saline solution for a nasal saline spray is really not complicated. In most cases it’s simply salt, like the salt on your table, and water. But wait—we need at least one more ingredient: preservatives. Yes, in many cases the manufacturer has to put preservatives in to keep the germs out. While this isn’t present in all of the nasal saline sprays on the market it is present in some. And it is present in virtually every other kind of nasal spray that you might purchase.

Irritating Effects of Saline Spray

Some people don’t seem to think too much negative about having powerful chemicals being sprayed into the nose. But then some people minimize the various chemicals that pollute our whole environment. The assumption is that these foreign chemicals are neutral on the body. In fact they are not. And in particular the preservatives that are sprayed into the nose have an irritating effect on the cells that line the nasal passages. Is this a surprise to anyone? And unfortunately while the preservatives are having a negative effect on the nasal lining, they aren’t doing much to kill the bad germs that are already in the nose!

Not only do we see this intrusion of chemicals sprayed into the nose with some treatments offered in the stores, it is often delivered in a way that requires devices or strategies that need some additional equipment. These strategies are used because of the belief that it does not help to sniff a nasal saline solution from the hand into the nose. Somehow the belief that this strategy doesn’t “work” is floating around out there in the land of the nasal treatment.

Homemade Nasal Spray

Actually, sniffing a nasal saline solution from the hand is a very good way to get the equivalent of a saline nasal spray up the nose. I think it’s the best way. In over 30 years of medical practice I see this as a very effective strategy— when it’s done right and with the right kind of home made nasal saline solution. I call this my “Lo tech, No tech” approach. If you’re interested in this you can get the information on my blog.

So I want to summarize these points: if you combine the right ingredients to make a good saline nasal solution you can make this best products free of preservatives and avoid all of those negatives. And you can deliver it to the nose in a very “Lo tech” approach using that most simple of “Lo tech” devices, the hand. (Actually Lo tech only in the sense of not made by people!!)—but make sure you learn how to do it the right way.