Snot Half Bad
Written: Jan 13 '06 (Updated Oct 20 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap, all natural ingredients & provides relief of stuffiness from colds, sinusitis, etc.
Cons: I have to stick this where?
The Bottom Line: NeilMed Sinus Rinse is an all natural nasal irrigation kit that will kick the snot out of your nose.
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| jackai's Full Review: NeilMed's Sinus Rinse Regular Kit |
I don't share much in common with Prfstars. We live on opposite coasts. She can sing the praises of wine like the enthusiast she is, while I can just barely appreciate its complexities. She likes to cook and prepare food with the latest in kitchen gadgetry, I prefer to pull back the plastic cover and nuke for five minutes. One thing we do have in common however, is a love for pizza* - and a nasty propensity for sinus infections. When she first wrote a review on the Ayr Sinus Rinse Kit, it never occurred to me that nasal irrigation could be an option to relieve my sinus troubles. Instead, it just led me to double Kleenex’s stock price and indulge in the occasional Afrin spritz. But if you’ve ever suffered from a sinus infection, you’ll know that it feels like someone took bales of cotton steeped in mucous, packed them up your nose and tamped them down under your eyes. It’s simply the worst feeling.
Inspired by her review, I went to my local Duane Reade and hunted for some product. The drugstores in my area didn’t offer the Ayr product specifically reviewed by Melissa, but instead I found a similar counterpart in the NeilMed Sinus Rinse Kit. From a design standpoint, the package is hideous. There’s a cheesy blue sky background with almost every square inch of its packaging covered with multi-colored text. There’s something written about the contents, what it alleviates, that it’s physician developed, etc. There’s even an amusing picture of a model holding the bottle up to her nose above a sink. It’s a little unnecessary and not a little condescending considering you wouldn’t see a comparable photo on a package of Summer’s Eve, but really, it’s a minor quibble.
Exactly like Ayr, NeilMed comes with a plastic 8oz. squeezable rinse bottle and 50 packets of premixed sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and sodium chloride (salt), which the package painstakingly details in red letters as “ph balanced, isotonic and preservative and iodine free”. Good to know. The rinse bottle has a custom designed cap with a plastic hollow tube connected to it.
There are specific directions to follow while irrigating your sinuses, but they are simple and very explicit, and best of all, it’s printed everywhere - to the opening flap of the package, to right on the squeeze bottle itself. You can’t screw this up. It’s a plain device, very easy to use, and even if the act of spraying saline water up your nose may strike you as uncomfortable, it’s so worth it. The all natural mixture safely cleans and lubricates sinus passages so as to “alleviate sinus symptoms, nasal allergies, common cold symptoms, post nasal drip, congestion and dryness, as well as nasal irritation from occupational dust, fumes, animal dander, grass, pollen, smoke, smog and house dust.”
Irrigating your sinuses will not cure your sinus infection, but it speeds along the healing process and most of all it can relieve the stuffiness for up to 8 hours or so. Since all the ingredients are natural, you can use it up to twice a day and I experienced no burning or stinging any time I’ve tried it. The product and packaging is ugly as sin, but it works beautifully, and that’s all that counts. So if you have chronic sinusitis, rhinitis, allergies or just a plain, lousy cold, do yourself a favor and douche your nose.
Other Tidbits
NeilMed Sinus Rinse Kit is available at drugstore.com and Amazon.com and range in price from $10 - $12. In New York City, it’s available at Duane Reade drugstores and Walgreens. It’s rather cheap, especially when you have the convenience of the premixed packets. Should you run out of them, you can easily order more since they’re sold separately in packets of 100. The bottle is easy to clean. Since I don’t have a dishwasher, I just use a lot of soap and hot water and let air dry. And in case you miss the graffiti all over the package, there’s a lengthy educational brochure that comes along with the entire kit. It’s actually quite edifying.
If you want any more information about this product, you can also go to neilmed.com.
*I also got Melissa addicted to the show Lost. So that’s another thing we have in common. She also gets half credit for coming up with the title of this review.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jackai
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Member: Jack Aiello
Location: Milky Way, 1st Black Hole on the left
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 66 members
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