Author: Crew Dog

Full disclosure: Neti Pot is the name of one type of device used for a nasal saline rinse.  I haven’t actually tried this type of device.  Since I didn’t think I was coordinated enough to use an actual neti pot, I use the squeeze bottle style device.

I heard a lot of buzz about using neti pots, but I was skeptical. Two things convinced me to try them: 1) my good-ole-boy, no-nonsense, former law-enforcement-officer (LEO) friend said he’d been doing it for years and it had made a big difference for him [although he wasn’t using an actual neti pot – he was doing a redneck-style nasal rinse]; 2) several doctors recommended that I try it, and then the VA prescribed me a starter kit.

The starter kit consisted of a squeeze bottle, packets of saline mix, and instructions.

But I still wanted more information, so I googled “how to use a neti pot,” and watched several videos. See the end of this article for one such video.

It is not difficult to do a saline rinse (although I haven’t tried fumbling with a slippery-when-wet ceramic neti pot). However, after having done saline rinses for several years now, I have found various ways to screw it up, which I list below. In my defense, I usually do a saline rinse when I have been exposed to allergens and am having an allergic reaction which, in my case, typically includes “brain fog” (cognitive impairment). Thus, I have inadvertently discovered various ways to screw up the process.

Mistakes I have made:

• Not warming up the water (Cold! So cold! Shocks the sinuses)
• Warming up the water too much (Hot! Ouch!)
• Forgetting to add the saline (Burning sensation, very unpleasant)
• Adding two packets to one dose of water (Different burning sensation, very unpleasant – recommend greater attention to detail) [If you make this mistake, shake up the solution well then pour out half into a clean container and add the right amount of water to the bottle and the container to make each 8 ounces – this should give you the right concentration.]
• Not shaking up the bottle to dissolve and mix in the saline (burns when you reach a high saline portion of the water)
• Not screwing down the nozzle tight enough (water leaks out)
• Screwing nozzle too tight (bottle can’t equalize the pressure and stays collapsed, making it very difficult to get the remainder of the water out)
• Tilting head too far back (water runs down the back of your throat)
• Rinsing both nostrils with only one 8 ounce dose (I didn’t realize at first that you are supposed to use a full 8-ounce dose on each side, so you do the full bottle on one side and then repeat the process for the other side.)

Mistakes I have NOT made:

• Forgetting or neglecting to thoroughly clean and dry the bottle & nozzle (mold can form if the device is not properly cleaned and dried – no one wants to spray mold into their sinuses)
• Just using regular salt (commercial manufacturers add baking soda to get the right pH)
• Just using regular tap water. See Warning below.

How I do a nasal saline rinse:

• I gather my supplies (squeeze bottle and nozzle, two saline packs, filtered water, measuring cup, tissues).
• I heat 2 cups (16 ounces; ~500 ml) of water in a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave for between 30-45 seconds (until it is warm but not hot). I use a Pyrex measuring cup because it is microwave-safe, has a small lip for pouring liquids, and is glass, not plastic. Heating plastics in the microwave can release harmful chemicals.
• I take the warm water to the bathroom sink, where I pour half of it (8 ounces; ~250 ml) into the nasal rinse squeeze bottle. (The bottle is soft plastic. It could be releasing chemicals for all I know, but I have decided I’d rather risk that than risk growing mold inside a neti pot where I can’t see it, or risk dropping a ceramic neti pot. You do you. Also, manufacturers recommend the bottle be replaced every 3 months)
• Next, I add one packet of pre-mixed saline to the squeeze bottle containing the water, screw on the nozzle, and shake vigorously. CAUTION: Place a finger over the hole in the nozzle before shaking.
• Once the saline is well mixed, I lean over the sink, tilt my head sideways and down, open my mouth, insert the nozzle tip into a nostril, and begin to gently squeeze the bottle. [Your head should be tilted to the side, and whichever nostril you are using first should be on the high side.] Water should run through your sinuses and exit the *other* nostril [the nostril on the low side]. Some people complain that the water runs down the back of their throats and they find that very unpleasant. If that happens to you, remember to keep your mouth open while using whatever nasal saline rinse device you are using (to help equalize pressure), and keep your head tilted down over the sink. Breathe through your mouth.
• You will probably need to remove the nozzle from your nostril at least once to allow the pressure in the bottle to equalize so that you can continue to squeeze the contents out of the bottle. Remember to keep your head over the sink during this process or you will drip from your nose onto the countertop or floor. Once the bottle “re-inflates,” tilt your head sideways and down, place the nozzle opening in the high side nostril again and continue until the bottle is as empty as you can get it.
• At this point, I set down the empty bottle, press my thumb against the outside of the nostril through which I’ve been running the saline solution (the high side nostril), press the nostril shut, and blow my nose into the sink. This helps clear the saline solution (and gunk) from my nasal passages.
• I will then take a tissue or two and blow my nose until no m0re water or gunk comes out.
• Then repeat the process on the other side by mixing more solution in the squeeze bottle, etc. and then tilting your head to the *other* side, so that the nostril that was low before is high now, and place the nozzle in the high nostril (so, for example, if you placed the nozzle in your left nostril first, place it in the right nostril now). Repeat all the steps that you did for the first nostril.
• Clean and dry the measuring cup, bottle/neti pot, and nozzle afterward. I store the nozzle separate from the bottle, so that both are able to fully dry and no moisture gets trapped inside.

TIP: Some people prefer to do their nasal saline rinse in the shower, rather than over the sink. If you are concerned about making a big ole mess, you might try that instead.

WARNING: Do not forget to thoroughly rinse the measuring cup, squeeze bottle or neti pot, and nozzle, and to dry them thoroughly after each use. You DO NOT want mold to grow on any of these items.

WARNING: PEOPLE HAVE GOTTEN HORRIBLE INFECTIONS FROM USING TAP WATER to do a nasal saline rinse, because “Tap water generally has small amounts of bacteria, protozoa, and other microorganisms, including amebae. These are fine to swallow because stomach acid kills them, but they should not go into the nasal passages. If they do, they can remain alive and eventually cause serious infections.”  Always use distilled or at least filtered water to do a nasal saline rinse.  (You can read the FDA guidelines here .) This article provides a good overview as well, as does this one.

CAUTION: Do not share a neti pot or squeeze bottle with anyone else. Gross!

If you’re skeptical about the value of nasal saline rinses, you can read more about their utility here:

I personally do not do a nasal saline rinse every day, although my doctor recommended it, because I read research that indicated that daily use might actually be harmful. Basically, the research said that prolonged daily use could deplete the protective layer of mucus in your nose that helps prevent infections. Instead, I do a nasal saline rinse on an as-needed basis whenever I am exposed to an airborne allergen such as dust, mold, pollen, or fragrances, or when I have nasal or sinus congestion. Talk with your doctor, do your own research, and decide what is best for you.

More info about nasal saline rinses here.

TL;DR: Here’s a video on how to use an actual neti pot:

Feel free to share your experiences of using a nasal saline rinse in the comment section.

After having bought a new house, moved cross-country, hosted several houseguests (with the entertaining and eating out that went along with that), and spent too much on Christmas, I was inspired by Mrs. Frugalwoods to take her über frugal challenge in January.

I didn’t actually sign up for her daily emails, although I’m sure some people would find them very helpful; I just took her blog post as inspiration to go on a money diet for the month of January. Plus, it was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one tightening my money belt this month.

One of the ways I reduced spending this month was by eating down the contents of my pantry. Which means that my dinner one night was rice noodles with coconut milk. Not a terribly exciting meal, but it felt good to know that I was using up some food that has been languishing at the back of my pantry.

Being on a money fast helped me to break the habit of overspending that came from the move. When I was tempted to impulse spend, I thought about the ledger I kept this month. The challenge of trying to keep the row of zeros going helped me overcome the temptation to buy a gadget or a fast food meal. I liked seeing how many days in a row I could spend $0.00. [Of course, I’m only talking about discretionary income. But I am looking at my “fixed” expenses now too, to see if there’s any way I can reduce any of them.]

Just like with food, reducing spending will only be successful if it becomes a lifestyle change, rather than a restricted diet that is so severe that it is unsustainable long-term. After about two weeks on the spending diet, I started to feel a bit restricted by it. Although I had overcome the habit of buying things on Amazon when I felt like it, and I no longer went to fast food as a default because it was easier than finding cookware in my still-not-fully-unpacked kitchen, at two weeks into the diet I started to feel a bit deprived. I decided that if reducing my spending was going to become a lifestyle, I needed to actually spend on necessities, not just play games and wait until the month was over to buy things I needed. So I went ahead and bought dental floss.

It still felt a bit restrictive, and for at least a week I was really looking forward to buying more things when the month was over. I really wanted to buy some e-books, so I tried to find frugal ways to get what I wanted. I went to the library and got a library card, and got information on how to get e-books from the library. But when I got home and tried to download the app, I found out it only worked on Microsoft or iPads/iphones/ipods, and I don’t have any of those. :’-(

So how did I do with the über frugal challenge? Good and bad.

Good: At the end of the month, I had spent $0.00 on 23 of 31 days. The longest I was able to go without spending any money was 6 consecutive days, and I was able to do that twice. [Since I buy lots of perishable groceries (fresh fruits & vegetables), I had to buy groceries once a week.]

Bad: Despite trying to spend as little as possible this month, I still wound up spending over $950. :-O

Where did it all go? It breaks down as follows:

Total Spent: $960.61

Groceries: $453.42

Medications: $22

Gas: $43.33

Dental floss: $9.15

Holiday travel-related expenses: $61.25 [Getting home from Christmas travels]

Gifts: $63.04

Apple slicer: $9.42

Professional expenses: $299

You could argue that professional expenses shouldn’t be included in discretionary income, but I decided to include every penny I spent on anything that wasn’t a fixed bill.

Meanwhile, I recognize that I was privileged to be on a money fast because I wanted to reduce my discretionary spending and not because I was one of the federal government employees who were without paychecks, or otherwise in a dire financial situation. I acknowledge that many people count their pennies and tighten their belts out of sheer necessity. Then again, you could argue that my money fast was necessary, since I have become disabled and chronically ill and may never be able to work again.

Taking the über frugal challenge enabled me to break the habit of spending money for convenience/stress-relief, which is something I wind up doing every time I move. It also helped me to break the holiday spending mindset that I seem to succumb to every Christmas.

It also made reconciling my credit card statement super easy this month. Since I was aware of every purchase/expense, I just had to quickly scan the statement and confirm that there were no unauthorized purchases.

And even though I thought during week three that I couldn’t wait until the month was over to relax the restrictions and spend a little bit more, a funny thing happened. When the über frugal month ended, I was disappointed that I had spent so much despite trying so hard to be frugal. But I also enjoyed knowing exactly where my money went. So I decided to keep the challenge going.

Yup, you heard that right – I’m extending my frugal challenge through February.

Even though I was initially disappointed when I totaled up my discretionary spending, the über frugal challenge had the following benefits for me:

• It helped me get back to basics (tracking where every penny goes).
• It helped me stop spending mindlessly.
• It helped me stop spending for convenience.
• It helped me break the Christmas spending mindset.
• It made me start thinking about my “fixed” expenses and ways to reduce them.
• I saved money.

Yes, I did save money, despite spending such a ridiculous amount. I was feeling down about how much I’d spent, despite my best efforts, when I was reminded (while reading a post at Get Rich Slowly) that we spend less than we earn so that we can invest the difference. Right! I had been so focused on how much I spent that I forgot why I was trying to reduce my spending. So I went back and figured out how much I had not spent in January, and I was able to transfer my savings to the account where we’re saving money to pay for the repairs our new house needs. Success!

Even though she doesn’t know I was playing along at home, I’d like to thank Liz Thames, aka Mrs. Frugalwoods, for coming up with the über frugal challenge. I think I may do it every January to help reset my spending attitude after the holidays.

What do you think of the über frugal challenge? Is it something you might try?

Although I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I did decide to take Mrs. Frugalwoods’ January über frugal challenge (unofficially, more details on Monday).

And now that I have gotten my discretionary spending back on track (after the move and the holidays), I have decided that February is a good month to get my eating back on track.

So, for the next month, I’m going to avoid eating processed foods. No cookies. No chips. Just fruits, vegetables, meat, beans, and rice. (I’m counting potatoes as a vegetable, but not if they’re processed.)

There’s nothing wrong with a more gradual approach to reducing spending or changing your diet, but I’ve always been most successful using the “all or nothing” technique. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Longtime readers will know that I don’t really “do” New Year’s resolutions. And I don’t pick a word of the year (WOTY) most years either. But it feels appropriate to have a WOTY this year because I am experiencing major life changes.

For most of my adult life I have had the goal of earning a PhD. I always expected that I would complete this degree and then work as a professor and/or researcher for the Department of Defense (DoD). And I made it all the way to the last step: I completed all of the coursework, wrote and defended a master’s thesis, passed the comprehensive exam, and completed two prestigious fellowships. I have been a doctoral candidate (also known as all-but-dissertation [ABD]) for four-and-a-half years. And that entire time I have been too ill and/or broken to be able to work on the dissertation.

Each time there was some improvement in my health, I would attempt to work on my dissertation. And, each time, my health would experience a significant setback. Determined as I am to complete this goal, conditioned as I am to never quit, I can’t keep ignoring this pattern. In the back of my mind, I hear Dr. Phil saying:

And I have to admit, it *isn’t* working. And, as the saying goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The truth is, sometimes it doesn’t matter how determined you are or how hard you’ve worked – sometimes you just can’t reach the finish line.

This is a harsh reality when you are chronically ill – sometimes you just can’t will your dreams into reality because your body betrays you, and no matter how badly you want something or how hard you try, your body just won’t do what you want or need it to do.

So it’s time to cut my losses and move on.

Which means that I am now in freefall. By letting go of the end of the rope to which I’ve been hanging for so many years, I find myself falling into the unknown. Letting go of the goal to which I’ve been fiercely holding tight for so many years is scary, even though I know that I have to let go in order to make room for something new.

So I’m leaping off a cliff, freefalling into the unknown future with hands that are bloody from having held on so tightly to this dream for so many years, bloody from having fought so long not to have it pried from my grip.

If I’m honest, the future is always unknown. That’s just hard to admit for those of us who like to pretend that we can control the future by making plans and following them. But becoming chronically ill has forced me to confront my illusions of control. When you are forced to accept that you can’t control your own body, you realize you don’t have control of much else either.

Therefore, 2019 will be a year of transition, a year of major life changes for me. We’ve moved across the country, to a fixer-upper, so renovations will begin again (after three years of renovating the house we thought was our retirement home in the Rockies). I am surrendering the dream that I have held for decades, and which I have been actively pursuing for the past eight-and-a-half years. I will continue to pursue diagnoses for my chronic illnesses in 2019. And Spousal Unit and I will have to figure out what comes next – how do we want to live our lives here and now. Here, in this new place, and now that we have surrendered the dreams that led us to Colorado. Now that our lives are shaped by my illnesses and disability.

But first, I’m going to grieve the death of this dream that I have pursued for so long. I’m going to grieve the change in my physical status from able-bodied to disabled and chronically ill. I’m going to sit with my feelings and fully feel them, rather than running away from them or ignoring them, as I have done for most of my life. And then I will work on acceptance – acceptance of my new reality, acceptance of “what is and what can never be.”

I know that I have to let go of this dream in order to make room for whatever is next. I’ve been stuck spinning my wheels for years. It’s time to make a change, time to let go and move on.

But I’ve never quit before, you see, so it’s going to take some time for me to process this.

And then I think I’ll have a wake for my PhD. It has consumed a large portion of my life, and I think a commemoration is in order. I will grieve, and I will honor its passing, and then I will rise from the ashes of the life I thought I would have and walk into my alternate future.

So, what happened? I continued to get more ill, more incapacitated the longer I lived in the Rockies – even though I had successfully lived there previously. This time my body simply was.not.having.it.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to obtain a diagnosis, let alone a successful treatment. I reached the point where I was no longer living – I was merely existing. I spent my days online if I had enough mental capacity or watching TV if I did not. I only left the house for doctor’s appointments, and I couldn’t tolerate most visitors to my house due to my allergies.

After years of struggling to get better, I finally accepted that I probably never will. I am chronically ill and disabled, and my life has radically changed. This is my “new normal.”

And so I asked myself, “Assuming that I will not be able to complete my academic degree and that I may never be able to work outside the home again, how do I want to live what is left of my life?” I heard my sister-in-law’s voice, asking the question she often asks her children: “What would make your heart happy?”

And although my answer was frequently, “I want to finish my degree and complete the plans I made,” eventually a different dream emerged. If I could no longer pursue my previous goals, then I wanted to skip ahead to the dreams I had for “someday.” Eventually – once I had worked long enough, once I had done enough to contribute to society – I wanted to live someplace warm, someplace where I could swim and snorkel and scuba dive whenever I wanted.

And so Spousal Unit and I have uprooted our lives once again. We have sold our dream home in the Rockies and moved to the beach.

I plan to blog about all of this in 2019: coming to terms with a chronic illness; moving while chronically ill; survival minimalism; personal finance and chronic illness; and learning to live life on my own terms and according to my own definition of success. And, of course, I will continue to blog about heath and wellness.

Thanks for reading my blog. Thanks for coming along on my journey. I look forward to what 2019 will bring.