Yay! A positive post! A really positive post!

Over the last 10 years, I had developed a very bad sinus infection susceptibility. It had gotten so bad that I could count on at least 6 sinus infections all through the year. And these were bad…lasting a week or two with fever, loss of voice, etc.

Trips to the doctor really didn’t do much good. ENT’s basically said my physiology made it so that any problems would push me over the edge. When you depend on your voice, this life becomes a constant stress bomb. You start to plan out events and timeframes, watching the ‘event horizon’ of potential sickness and when you’ll be well again.

It also makes sinus surgery a risky proposition. You spend your whole life learning how to make things resonate correctly in your thick skull. Do you really want someone hacking away at it?

I was left to Z-Packs, Prednisone, and prayer….not in that order….and hope. I was hoping to just get them over with as quickly as possible.

Until this year. This year with the CD release concert I decided I was sick of living life in bondage to what was scientifically inferior organisms and theologically the product of sin and seperation. I was ready for my miracle, tired of payin’ my co-pays and just waitin’ for God to pull me through. I wanted to be more than a conqueror and claim these sinuses as echo chambers for victory.

And so far…it’s working! By now I would have had at least two major sinus events and misery. But I have had NONE. Zero. Nada. Not only that, but I feel great. Very little clicking and poping and icky feeling and general sinus ‘fliction.

Here’s how I’m doing it:

Alternating Zyrtec and Claritin. I’ve found Zyrtec to be more of a heavy hitter in the realm of antihistamines, but even that seems to wear off as your body builds up a resistance to it. Claritin is more hit and miss, but it works great as a buffer as you let your H1 receptors forget about that jerk Cetirizine molecule it used to date. After some time apart, “baby…I’ve changed”…..and Zyrtec is back in business.

A whole lotta Vitamin C. I like “Emergen-C”. The clever name never wears off, and it actually tastes like pop-rocks and Kool Aid. I’d probably drink it even if it didn’t have all that vitamin’y goodness. 2 to 3 doses of these a day seems to do the trick.

Sudafed. The real kind. On a day when my head seems determined to cause a problem, I hit it with a couple doses of red pills. The only problem with this is you have to go to the pharmacy counter and ask for it without looking like a meth head. So you try to get the 96 count packs that will last longer…which only makes it worse. Then you give in and start having fun with it. Jittery hands, darting eyes, and mumbling about the secret police will do the trick.

A Neti Pot. Yes, this is the weird one. But I think it’s the real deal, and probably the most effective part of my regimen. I actually poor salt water into my head and then let it drain out again. I do this every morning. It takes some getting used to but it has worked miracles. Once you get the temperature of the water right, it really doesn’t feel all that strange.

When you think about how much junk gets on our cars this time of year, imagine how much junk must be in our upper respiratory tract? It makes sense that this process helps. It’s a little weird, but it’s awesomely weird and I’ll take that any day.

So there you have it. Give this process a try, and maybe you’ll have success too!