comments:
Update in case anyone ever stumbles on this in search. I tried a lot of the things other commenters mentioned, and they had some great advice! - First: you don't have to force the water all through your nose at first. You can just spray it up one nostril and have it fall back down that same nostril. It's not as effective, but it still accomplished a lot. I wasn't able to get full in-one-nostril-out-the-other until about a week post-op. - Sinex is much gentler than Neilmed. I don't know if it's the formula or because the squeeze bottle is more flexible, but it was a much better experience. Especially because it let me adjust how big the nozzle was. - I started humming non-stop the entire time. Not "try to breathe out" or "go kkkkk", more "one solid loud note sound like an orchestra warming up or an alarm." This made a huge difference in not going down my throat. - The first few days I didn't do the rinse bottle- I did the spray can. https://a.co/d/0inUQyVi That was MUCH easier to ease myself into it. That's not going to do the whole circuit, but my ENT 1.5 weeks post op said that's totally fine. - The first few days I attempted the Sinex rinse, I would do Afrin 5~10 minutes beforehand. On the downside, I didn't get to enjoy the effects of the Afrin very long, but on the upside, the rinse was much less uncomfortable and got further. - Warming the full rinse bottle in the microwave for ~15 seconds did help - I also took sudafed for about a week with my ENT's blessing, and I think that helped a lot in general. - About a week after, a stitch came out on one side. By the next morning, things were MUCH better. Until that happened, I don't know that I ever achieved the full in one side out the other, but after that I felt a lot better in general and the rinses got much further. Good luck!