A nurse question

CAn you rinse your sinuses too much when you have a cold?  The gizmo says to rinse twice a day, but that is considering that you are in a normal situation.  If you have a cold and a lot of drainage and congestion, are you doing anything counter productive by rinsing more often...say once every 4 hours or so with a mild saline solution?  Does anyone know? <

Karla, I'm not a nurse, of course, but am well acquainted with sinus and other apparatus as I was a professional opera singer!  When I had an infection and still had to perform I rinsed the sinus cavities every time I needed to - from one to a half dozen times.  I used "Ocean" or made a mild saline solution.  If your throat is bothering you the old "gargle with warm, salty water" is good.  It really does soothe.  If you need an expectorant, Mucinex is one of the best I have ever found.  Remember the ad, "aspirin and Sucrets"?  Good advice also.  I might note that if your sinuses start to "burn" or any other unpleasant sensation, you might want to ease off the rinsing.  But, again, I never had a problem with doing it as many times as I needed.

hope this helps and hope you get to feeling better soon!

JOHN

Thank you.  We are still looking forward to you coming to Tuscaloosa and having lunch or dinner with us at our Tusca' losers meeting.  It was logical to me that rinsing the sinuses as often as was comfortable seemed reasonable, but sometimes logic is not correct.  Thank you for the advice.

Hi Karla,

The info given by the previous poster is correct.  I am an RN with 20 yrs of experience.  Most of it critical care, but I do know in infants, we use saline and suck them out with a bulb syringe.  I get the dirty work of doing it on my new granddaughter.  Especially now that the pediatricians do not give cold and cough meds to children under 4 yrs of age.  All they are recommending is saline nose spray, humidifiers and liquids.  Good Luck.

DachsieMom

Thank you.