Are you like me where no matter what time of year it is, allergy season or not, your nose starts to stuff up in the hours leading up to bed time? Well, I may have found the perfect solution!
My entire life, like many others, I’ve been a slave to the infamously compulsive nose spray, namely Afrin, for months at a time. My nose would start to stuff up; a puff or two in each nostril and within seconds my nasal passageways would open right up, and I could breathe perfectly. But then, the next night and the next night and the next night it’s the same routine. No matter what else I did, I would start to get stuffed up shortly before bedtime and had no other choice (or at least I thought at the time) but spray the addicting (whatever chemicals) nose spray up my honker. From what I’ve researched, this could all be because I may have a deviated septum, but nonetheless, it happens. While nose sprays, like Afrin, do work (and great at that), they can be very addicting and when used chronically can eventually cause degeneration of the nasal passageways.
A few years ago, I had tried the Breathe Right Nasal Strips for a little bit, and they did work like they claimed to work…for a little bit. They definitely opened my nasal passageways, but they seemed to be pretty inconsistent when it came to their ability to stick to my nose throughout the entire night. Sometimes they would start to peel off my nose in the middle of the night, causing me to wake up from not being able to breathe out of one nostril or the other (or both), and sometimes they would still be fully stuck on my nose when I woke up, to the point where it felt like I was going to rip my skin off trying to pry it off my face. I also didn’t like the way they used the bridge of my nose as leverage to pull my nasal passageways open. It wasn’t painful at all, but I could feel the pressure across the bridge of my nose, and it just felt weird and uncomfortable at times.
Several months ago, my wife suggested I try using her Flonase steroidal spray temporarily. She said that I should be able to use it for a very short period and then my nose would kind of right itself and I shouldn’t need to use any spray any longer. So, I tried it. When my nose would start to get stuffed up at night, I tried spraying her Flonase up each nostril, and what I found was that it almost seemed to make my situation momentarily slightly worse. She warned me that that may happen, but to give it a chance and it should clear up and allow me to breathe better. It seemed to work, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea of essentially replacing one nose spray with another. And being that it’s a steroidal spray, it could lead to degeneration of my nasal passageways sooner than the normal (OTC) nose sprays, so I knew this wasn’t a long-term solution.
Recently, though, I think I found what I’ve been looking for! I found the best breathing system. Upon browsing the pages of products on Amazon, like I find myself doing from time to time (probably more often than I should), I stumbled across something that caught my eye (or nose rather): the Intake Breathing Premier Nasal Dilator. It’s a system that is similar to the Breathe Right strips, but it has multiple parts. It consists of small stickers with rounded cutouts for your nostrils and little metal discs attached in the middle, and a curved piece of plastic with magnets on the ends (they call them bands). You have to start by getting the starter pack because that’s how you get the band, but then you can get refill packs of the stickers. The starter kit actually comes with 4 different sizes of the bands so you can decide which size you want depending on how big or wide your nose is. They suggest cleaning your nose with alcohol before applying the stickers to ensure they stick securely; I use 91% rubbing alcohol and have not had any issues with the effectiveness of the stickers. It also comes with a little magnetic applicator to use to place the stickers on the sides of your nose, so you don’t have to touch them with your hands and potentially compromise the stickiness.
The first time I tried the Intake Breathing system, I was amazed at how much it opened up my nasal passageways. I could instantly take big deep breathes through my nose consistently without any hint of stuffiness. I’m even sleeping through the night, waking up way less throughout the night due to breathing issues. Only once did I wake up in the morning with one of the stickers starting to peel off, but it was still stuck on my nostril enough to hold my nasal passageway open and lasted the entire night. Every other time I’ve used them, the stickers have stayed securely stuck to the sides of my nose. With regards to how stuck they are to my nose; they peel off pretty easily. You just have to get a fingernail under an edge of the sticker, and they peel right off. The magnets on the band are strong enough that sometimes, if you pull it off slowly, you can pull the stickers off with it. If I had to describe how the system feels when installed on your nose, it kind of feels like your nostrils are being flared for you and held that way. I’ve been using the Intake Breathing system for about a few weeks now and I’m completely satisfied with how they allow me to breathe at night. You might think it would get tiring having to put the stickers on your nose every night, but honestly, I don’t give a hoot if it means I can breathe through my snoot.
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