1. Oh, my God, I can’t breathe through my nose. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! I’ll never sleep again. I’ll do anything to fix this. I’ll kill anything if it will open my nasal passages for five minutes,
2. No, but do you know what happens to people who use nose spray?
3. Are you ready for a lifetime addiction to the rebound congestion brought on by regular nose spray use?
4. No, no; I’ll be fine, this isn’t a problem. I’ll just breathe through my mouth and have a sore throat until the end of my life and then I’ll be dead for forever.
5. There are so many natural remedies for a sore throat or for plugged-up sinuses! I’ll just use a neti pot, like our caveman ancestors.
6. Except what if the deadly brain infections lurking inside of my (or my roommate’s) neti pot destroy me?
7. They’ll infect my brain, and I’ll die, and then I’ll be dead forever, and my roommates won’t be able to pay the rent, and then where will they be? Not in our house, that’s for sure.
8. How bad is a neti pot infection really, though?
The Food and Drug Administration last month reported on two cases in Louisiana in which patients contracted infections after using neti pots filled with tap water. The culprit was an amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, which is commonly found in lakes, rivers and hot springs.
This kind of infection is exceedingly rare, but it usually occurs when people get water up the nose after swimming or diving in lakes or rivers; Naegleria fowleri can travel from the nose into the brain, where it causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a disease that destroys brain tissue and is almost always fatal. In 123 known cases from 1962 to 2011 in the United States, only one person has survived, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
9. Okay, so an infection is bad. But nasal spray, that’s not really such a big deal. Have the nose-spray addicts tried to quit many times?
I tried to quit more times than I could count and was never successful. The level of discomfort was more than I could bare and I felt trapped. I couldn’t breath out of my nose and I was unable to sleep. It was the most miserable time of my life. I had just accepted the fact that I would probably be addicted to nasal spray for the rest of my life.
Oh.
10. I will never touch water or breathe air or ever move again ever again, and I will live forever.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
