Be Clear, Sinuses!

The sinuses decided to flare, and wham, overnight, I woke up with clogged sinuses and muffled hearing in one clogged ear. Each time I pinch my nose to pop the airways, clear mucus comes out of my eyes. What the. I’m not totally sure what caused this round of allergies. Not caused by food for sure. Airborne particles. Air? Dust? 🤷🏻‍♀️ After a week of pharmacy meds, I caved and went to the GP to get stronger meds and had him take a look inside the ear canal.

The meds helped for sure, but effects are slow—180mg of fexofenadine, and fluticasone propionate in the form of corticosteroids in a bottle of Flixonase nasal spray. The allergies abate, then return. Arrrrrgh. The clogged ear is most irritating. It’s not entirely blocked and it doesn’t cause any sort of pain. Hearing my own voice echo when I speak is disconcerting. It unclogs when I lie supine, and while exercising. The eustachian tube in one ear remains half-blocked, and it simply refuses to clear. It doesn’t hurt, and it’s clearly not infected.

Somebody suggested chilling out in a salt room. Halotherapy. I'm highly skeptical. However, I had an hour to kill, and the gym has a salt inhalation room filled with heated Himalayan salt rocks, so I went. Popped in the ear buds, turned on the music and snoozed in there. I was like...whatever... Lying down unclogged the ear. Like the mucus sloshed the other way. When I got up, it sloshed back- there didn’t seem to be any perceived improvement to the congested ear.

The girlfriend breezily suggested I roll into karnapidasana twice a day and hold it there. Wait, what? I had to google. Oh, a yoga asana. The Karnapidasana is not a pose you want to get into with cold muscles. I wouldn’t attempt it till the end of the day. I can do this pose, but I rather just take it easy and do the halasana. It’s just an extension of the Pilates rollover. But man, it is painful on old bones!

There isn't any fever, pain or nausea. I decided to use the nasal spray for the ear too. What? Don’t tsk. They’re interconnected. It’s just a stop-gap two-day action before I dig up a non-expired anti-bacterial ear spray from somewhere. I wasn’t about to go to the GP again. If this doesn’t subside in another week, I’m off to the ENT specialist.