Hooray for warmer weather and longer days. Isn't Spring the best? Well, not for everyone because 'tis the season when allergy symptoms rear their ugly heads: congestion, runny noses, sneezing, asthma, as well as agonizing pain and pressure around your eyes and forehead. Here are some ways to relieve sinus congestion.
- Make an appointment with an allergist to find out what's triggering your congestion since it could be dust under your bed, the mold or mildew in your bathroom, or pollen outside. After determining that your best friend's new kitty is causing your symptoms, you can avoid the trigger to ease your congestion.
- If you can't figure out the trigger or it's impossible to avoid, talk to your doctor about allergy medication. I'm a fan of nasal sprays since they clear up congestion but don't cause any other annoying side effects like dry mouth or drowsiness. You may have to take the medication for a week or two to start feeling results.
To see how to get immediate relief read more.
- Use a neti pot to flush allergens, irritants, and mucus out of your nose and sinuses.
- Use heat therapy. Breathe in hot steam when taking a hot shower or bath. Adding eucalyptus oil to the water and the vapors should help clear your breathing passages.
- To relieve sinus pain and pressure, use a therapeutic warming pillow. Pop it in the microwave for two minutes, lie down and place it on your face, and the heat will help loosen up the mucus.
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Oh my god. Two words: neti pot. My life has never been the same. EVERYONE should have one!
1thank you for all these suggestions. living in NYC - you'd think that you'd be able to avoid a lot of allergies since we don't have all that many flowers and tress/plants around - but i find that i still get a bit stuffy and it's not fun. i really like a lot of these suggestions, and i'm going to start using them so i can be more proactive this year and not suffer.
2Maybe you all can help me out. I’ve been having what I think are sinus issues for about a year – I have congestion right where my nose and throat meet, sort of between the two sinus cavities. I can breathe just fine, but I can feel that lump of stuff there when I swallow. It waxes and wanes – earlier this week it was pretty bad and my ears kept getting plugged up – but it’s never debilitating, there's no pain involved, and it doesn’t seem to have any pattern with the seasons. (I was tested a few years back and I don’t have any seasonal allergies – just dust, mold, normal stuff like that, and even that doesn't seem to affect me much.)
I hesitate to go to my doctor because she’ll put me on allergy medicine and I don’t think it’s that bad. But I’d like it to stop! I’m going to try a neti pot, even though I’m kind of grossed out by the idea.
Has anyone had anything similar to this?
3I certainly wouldn't recommend using nasal sprays - ESPECIALLY not anything like vicks or afrin. They are HIGHLY addictive and coming off of them is one of the most miserable experiences I've ever had in my life. If you use the sprays for more then a day or two, your body starts to mimic the symptoms you're trying to get rid of, prompting you to keep using more nasal spray. Then it gets worse and worse until you find yourself using it every few minutes. I had to wait until I was off of work for two weeks to PLAN to get myself off the stuff. I quit cold turkey, and I could breathe - I had to breathe though my mouth so much that I got a throat infection that almost looked (and felt) like strep throat -but I didn't have insurance so couldn't go to the Dr. Anyway, I have never been the same since - I still have never had a full day go by where I haven't had to blow my nose at least a few times. Please - stay away from the nose spray. Saline solutions are okay, but that's it.
4Thanks!!!
5If you want a simple way to terminate a sinus infection, I found some stuff that kills fungus and bacteria that you really ought to try. The antibiotics don't kill the fungus and you need to kill both. This stuff does. You just spray it in your nose and WOW, it got rid of my nasty sinus infection in about a week. I had tried antibiotics that were specifically prescribed for my sinusitis and I also tried a neti pot (yuk) but just couldn’t get this sinus infection to quit. So I did a search and found this stuff (Sinus Relief) from Nature’s Rite. The only problem is that you have to spray it every 30 minutes. I thought, hey, what the heck, it’s worth a try and every 30 minutes isn’t too bad. I was really surprised how well it worked so I bought their sinus support too. It’s been a good moisturizer with calendula and aloe. It’s herbal ya know. I like herbal stuff. So anyway, you should try this for your sinusitis. It won’t make you have a yeast infection after-words like some antibiotics do.
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