Any advice for using this tactic without ending up with ulcers from an overly heat-tolerant palette?
I used to eat some pretty spicy stuff to open my sinuses up but it stopped working for that without going to gut-wrenching levels of heat.
I used to eat some pretty spicy stuff to open my sinuses up but it stopped working for that without going to gut-wrenching levels of heat.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor - consult your doctor before trying this.
That said, you can consider jala neti. Google the term. Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_(Hatha_Yoga)
It is a yoga technique for cleansing the nasal passages with luke-warm mildly salted water (1/2 teaspoon salt to a 200 ml glass of water is what I use, stirred well). I have been doing it daily for some years, and I find it helps clear my nasal passages. I had first read about it, long ago, in a book by the Yoga Institute, Santa Cruz, Mumbai, and read (in that book, which seemed somewhat scientific and cited many studies for its various claims) that a study was done in UK where a group did it in winter, another control group did not, and the first group had much less or no colds that winter. Thousands of Indians and other have been doing it for years. But - that was just one example, there could be other studies - pro or con, of course. Caveat user.
You should consult your doctor before trying neti, in case you have any complications that may make it less than helpful.
Also, I've found that sometimes a little of the salt water can sometimes trickle out of my nose up to a couple of hours after doing jala neti. So watch out and keep your head a bit away from any device or PC for a while. Tilting the head along various axes helps drain out any remnant water, I've found.
I don't have any allergies though, but maybe this could help?