Neti Pots and Waterboarding
I always thought the reason I hated the Neti Pot so much related to a simple fact: I am a total wuss. I always say that it feels like waterboarding.
Watching this video, I think it’s more complicated. I have a deviated septum. I noticed that my nostrils were very different in size during college, but I never thought much of it. I think it was when Jennifer Aniston got surgery for a deviated septum a few years ago that I wondered if I should care. The rumor was that she’d had a “nosejob,” but her nose didn’t look any different afterwards. She’d cited a deviated septum as the reason for the surgery. Anyway, about a year ago, I tried the Neti Pot, since everyone seemed to think it was the best thing ever. When I’ve tried it, it’s been torture because I’ll pour all the saline water into one nostril, but it doesn’t come out the other side. I am standing there leaning over the sink, my eyes are turning redder and redder, my sinuses are burning, and all this liquid is trapped in my head. I stand there as long as I can stand it. I might get a drip or two out the other nostril, but no lovely stream of saline like in the video. I’m thinking maybe I should look into this deviated septum situation. I was just reading the Wikipedia article about it, and it says that it’s often a result of birth trauma – of which I had a TONS. I have a foot lodge into my face when I was born. I think this explains a lot. Only took 39 years to work it all out.
I think I’m out on the Neti Pot until I talk to a real doctor about my deviated septum and about my allergies, which seem to get worse every year.
