Skip to main content

Sinus Relief: My Approach

Quick off-topic post about allergy relief...

I've been plagued by allergies since childhood: trees, cats, dogs, ragweed, you name it. I've been on every drug on the list. I can remember being sick every Easter and every birthday (end of September) for...well ever. A few years ago, I consulted an allergist who ran me through a series of tests, determined my exact allergies, and gave me some solid guidance.

Following my allergist's advice, I've not been 100% allergy/cold-free but I've noticed a significant improvement. His recommendations:
  1. Exam from an Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor. I have a slightly deviated septum and some nasal dollops but otherwise, nothing horrid. He checked my jaw, my hearing...all kinds of stuff. Fortunately, nothing major is/was wrong. He did recommend I wear a mouth guard at night to prevent teeth grinding (which may cause eustachian tube clogging).
  2. Take a daily Loratadine (generic Claritin).
  3. Daily Fluticasone steroid nasal spray (generic Flonase).
  4. NeilMed Sinus Rinse in the morning and before bed.
  5. (I think I came up with this one but...) Wear a particulate mask (just one of the cheap ones) when mowing the lawn. I'm sure the neighbors think I look like a weirdo but [without scientific evidence] it helps keep the dust and particles from getting into my sinuses...and causing infections.
The NeilMed Sinus Rinse is the big one for me. I'd done the other drugs for a while with limited success. The sinus rinse is similar to a neti pot...if you've heard of that. Essentially, it's a saline rinse for your sinuses. It's awkward at first but the benefits are tremendous--significantly fewer sinus infections!

I hope you find relief from your allergies. Looks like this spring will be rough.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
The doc gave my wife a NeilMed kit after she had her deviated septum fixed. She still uses it on occaision and says it works great!
Thursday, May 22, 2008 8:59:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hero Write-up: Now this is Customer Service!

My best friend Scott is president/C-everything of a small northeastern Ohio manufacturing concern, KirkKey Interlock . I hadn't spoken with him for a while and wanted to see how Canton fared with the Blizzard of '08 (that's what they're calling it...not me). I say, "So what's new?" He replies that on Tuesday his primary server (which essentially runs the business) came up with lame with not one, but [a statistically improbable] *two* physical disk failures on a RAID5 hardware array. My friend attempts the fix but gives up pretty quickly after seeing some Linux nasty-grams on the boot screen. His service provider is an old college buddy who lives down in Raleigh, Cerient Technologies led by Jason Tower . Scott couldn't email out because Exchange was on the toasted server. Being creative, Scott started Treo-emailing photos of the screen. Unfortunately, Jason couldn't receive email because a storm had knocked out a lot of local hosting. [Sigh] After...
4 comments
Read more

Certified or Certifiable?

As a senior technology professional, I interview a lot of candidates. I also maintain solid relationships with other folks in the community. Frequently, the topic of certifications arises: A good investment? Valuable? A clear measurement of skill? Consensus appears to draw the line related to one's seniority. If you're (for example) just out of school and looking for an instant creditability boost, by all means pursue a certification. Likely, this credential will assist you in overcoming the "junior" tag and likely land you more interviews and client roles. (Note: I'm going to use the terms senior and junior here...no offense to either. Can't think of a better one word description. I was a junior once too.) In stark contrast, the value of certifications drops off the table around the 2-3 year mark. Some in my circles even perceive certifications as a negative for the senior professional. They think, "If this guy is so solid, why is he wasting valuable...
5 comments
Read more

Consulting Exodus Trend?

Is it just me or have a significant number of 'A' players left our consulting firms? People come and people go. Ours is certainly not an industry of "lifers". However, within the past year or so, I've witnessed several of my consulting peers -- the folks I really look up to -- leave the consulting arena for [predominately] full-time technology product firms. A smaller number have left for full-time positions at businesses while an even smaller number left to start their own business|firm|freelance|etc. Their departure struck me as odd because these were the type of folks who [I thought] would eventually become owner / partners at their respective firms. Certainly, the firms will carry on and continue to perform well but the departure of these folks would result in nothing less than a severe case of the hiccups and quite possibly a minor cardiac event. You know who you are. Please comment. Do we [the consulting industry] have a brain drain issue? Is this a norm...
6 comments
Read more