[hattar]

I spent my whole life only breathing through half a nostril on a good day. About 10 years ago I got surgery and Sublingual Immunotherapy drops, and the results have been life changing.

I sleep better, my mind is clearer, I feel like an entirely new person. I am not exaggerating when I say that I still occasionally think about how nice it is to be able to breathe clearly.

[coenhyde]

Oxygen is a hell of a drug.

I use nose strips, and I'm addicted now too.

[thanatos519]

I tried nose strips but I don't like disposables. I now use silicone nostril openers - two little tubes attached at the base that you stick up your nose. It came as a set of 4 sizes so a bit of waste there, but one size fit me and one size fit my wife.

[N2yhWNXQN3k9]

These work well, but I wonder about hygiene. I keep mine in a glass dish on my desktop and attempt to cleanse them in hydrogen peroxide on occasion.

Ultimately, surgery is the best option in my experienced opinion, but it also has diminishing returns over time (~20 years in my case). This occurred recently for me, and I am looking to consult with an ENT again, when I feel like taking the recovery leap. With that said, I am still functioning extremely better than I ever did when I couldn't breathe 20 years ago.

[cess11]

If it's silicone, just put it in boiling water sometimes, as you would a menstrual cup.

Silicones are common in cooking utensils and used at temperatures way beyond what you'd need for your hygiene purpose.

[bakoo]

I would love to know where you got them from!

[N2yhWNXQN3k9]

You can find them under the search phrase: "nasal dilator".

[greggsy]

Flonase (fluticasone) has been a life changer. I have taken for granted how valuable breathing is in terms of speech, let alone sleep and general fatigue.

[dl9999]

Same for me. I spent the first 45 years of my life breathing almost entirely though my mouth. Then I tried some nasal spray that was great, but made the situation worse when I inevitably overused it, so I went to a doctor. I had been told when I was a kid that I had polyps, so I went to see about getting them removed. She put me on Flonase, which at the time was prescription, and since then I've been able to breathe through my nose unless I'm sick. It has been a significant quality of life improvement for me.

[mattgreenrocks]

I have had bad allergies for a lot of my life. I probably have some sort of histamine intolerance behind it all.

Recently my allergist gave me a tip with regard to nasal congestion. First, you can use Flonase and Astepro together, apparently they work better when used together. Astepro has an antihistamine in it that can help. Second, moisturize the interior of your nasal passages with a drop of muciprocin in each nostril applied inside your nose at the tip of it, then squeeze your nose gently to distribute. This lets you use get the benefits of Flonase without drying out your nose (which can trigger congestion).

[appleorchard46]

Moving to the coast made me feel like I finally woke up, after growing up perpetually stuffy and sniffly. Turns out I'm not a mouth breather after all!

[iambateman]

Yep - moving away from the coast basically did the opposite for me. :(

[egypturnash]

Just moving away from what your body decided to be allergic to when you were a kid with a bored immune system seems to help a lot, I moved from the Gulf Coast to the West Coast and my allergies receded a lot. I eventually moved back to where I grew up and they didn't really return except on days when the whole city's collective nose is running because all the trees are having an orgy up in there.

[wintermutestwin]

I’ve taken it for over 30 years now. It has indeed been a lifesaver and so much better than all the pills. One side effect is blurred vision and I have definitely noticed a slight blurring in the last couple of years. I gladly accept it as a small price to pay for decades of relief.

[saalweachter]

I feel like this is a trade-off not always understood and accepted in modern times; we expect our medicines to be perfect and our bodies to be restored to new condition, and when this isn't the case we feel betrayed.

[darkwater]

I was recently on cortisone for 3 months due to another condition and whoa I didn't remember how cool life was without a perpetual running nose.

[getlawgdon]

What specific surgery and what specific drops?

[hattar]

I had a turbinate reduction, a deviated septum adjusted, and a balloon sinuplasty. I'm unclear on what the drops are specifically but they're sublingual immunotherapy.

[getlawgdon]

Thanks for sharing