"Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention." — Frederick Buechner
This was posted by Mitali Perkins, but on the same day, in a closed group, a woman mentioned that she was never a crier and now cannot stop. I am reminded of the phrase that salt water solves all problems: the sea, tears, (what is the rest of this quote?) Ah, it's a quote from Isak Dinesan: "Salt water solves everything: sweat, tears, or the sea." (I wonder if this is something she said or from one of her stories?) WikiQuote tells me it's both. She said it in Reader's Digest in 1964, and it is also in one of her stories:
"Do you know a cure for me?"
"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."
"Salt water?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea."
---from "The Deluge at Norderney" (7 Gothic Tales, 1934)
When my mother was pregnant with my brother, the doctor sent her to beach at Tela to help her with a cold, and at this time we lived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the Nurse Practitioner at the U.S. Embassy Health Unit already had us sniffing salt water. (This is from memory, so I will take correction in the comments.) There were no stories of flesh or brain eating bacterium in those days. I sense that my municipal water in Pittsburgh is not going to have these bacteria, what do you think? Ah, here we go, an article from the Daily Mail. Yes. You should not use tap water to irrigate your nose. What about gargling with salt water (mixed with tap water?)
Oh dear, that gets you into an entirely different segment of scaries--you shouldn't drink water from plastic bottles, and tap water has chlorine. I refuse to let all the scaries get in the way of getting healthy. We live in a broken world in need of healing. I can only do my best, which can vary on a daily basis.
Onward onto more about sniffing salt water.
My thought is we need something like a bottle warmer that will warm distilled water, because part of the comfort in sniffing warm salt water is the warm part. I find that Neti pots don't work for me, I just put the salt water into my hand and sniff it from there. Also? One less thing to make sure you wash correctly, apparently bacteria can get into the neti pot if not washed and dried with care.
Must look into getting a bottle warmer or some such. I'm going a little broke buying canned saline solution from Target--4.99 for a can that lasts 3 weeks or so, or 8.79 for 100 special salt packets. If you use a packet twice a day (recommended) that lasts a month in a half. Also, less packaging/smaller footprint. Or, even cheaper, mix up your own with kosher salt and baking soda. I used to have the recipe from a ENT I went to in Fairfax.
After checking three websites, it seems the best recipe is 4 cups (1 quart) water, distilled or not (article linked does not say you have to use distilled), with 2-3 heaping teaspoons Kosher salt, and 1 rounded teaspoon of baking soda. Stir or shake before each use, dump after a week, start over. (University of Missouri ENT & Allergy Center.) A quart seems like a lot more than I'd use in one week, though. Here's one from the Happy Simple Living Blog, 1/2 cup. I don't think that would last a week. (I do like the idea of having a batch for the week.) I guess it's time to take it off the Interwebs and do some experimenting in the real world. Not today, I have more digital hoarding to clear out. But I'll let you know what I find out!
