any "recipes"? mine came with solution packs that don't look all that natural. i'd rather make something myself!

I just use salt

hehe i hope you add water to the salt megan .. i am trying hard to imagine streams of salt crystals pouring out your nose

coco my yoga buddy uses saline solution he buys in the store .. well cuz he says hes too lazy to make his own lol

but heres a solution from [www.craig.copperleife.com]

Supplies
Buy some distilled (or de-ionised, or de-mineralised) water. You should be able to find it with the laundry supplies in your supermarket (it's used for steam irons), in a hardware store, or an auto store (for topping up car batteries). I suggest buying at least a litre or a quart, and preferably twice this much. It's cheap stuff: around 2-3 dollars for 2 litres (half-gallon) here in Australia. Is it sterile? I don’t know. In theory it should be, but it all depends on how it is made and packaged. Some distilled water manufacturers explicity state that their product can be used for contact lens care, so one would assume that such brands are sterile, but as for others, you will be taking a risk. That risk can be reduced by boiling the distilled water when you get it home, and letting it cool while covered, but you’ll need a very clean stainless steel or glass pot, and maybe some sort of funnel for re-filling your container. The funnel will probably not be sterile. Maybe you could rinse the funnel with methylated spirits or rubbing alcohol and let it dry just before using it.

The other supply you need is salt. The ideal source is laboratory grade sodium chloride, available through a lab supply company or perhaps a friendly chemist. Next best would be plain cooking salt, as opposed to table salt. Table salt, and even some brands of cooking salt, contain silica-type minerals added as an 'anti-caking agent'. Silica is exactly the sort of insoluble gritty stuff you don't want in your solution. The cooking salt should probably be plain rather than iodised (though I have used the latter myself), as I can't say what long-term effects, if any, the trace quantities of iodine might bring about. To the best of my knowledge, dry, crystalline salt is a hostile environment for microbes that are likely to trouble you in this context, and is of itself certainly not an acanthamoeba risk. However, I am not an expert, and who knows for sure? Not me.

If you can find a clean, sterile container that holds a litre or a quart, this will be handy too. To really give your containers a thorough sterilisation, use a solution made with sterilising powder from home brew or winery supply shops. However, you'll have to use distilled water to rinse it out completely. Several small rinses are much more effective than one large rinse. You could use a well-cleaned plastic soft-drink bottle as your main storage container. At the very least, rinse it well as soon as the soft drink is finished, first with water that has been well boiled and cooled enough so as to not melt the plastic, and then give it a small final rinse or two with some fresh distilled water.

Measurements
Now comes the hard part: approximating the correct amount of salt. You are aiming for 8 grams per litre, which makes what we want—so-called ‘normal saline’. If you have access to laboratory or jeweller's scales you'll be laughing. You can buy electronic jeweller's scales fairly cheaply on ebay these days. Otherwise, use a teaspoon measure of the kind that is used for cooking. Make sure it's clean and sterile (boiling water and steam are good sterilisers). A teaspoon holds about 5 mls, so allowing for the density of salt, I find that a very slightly heaped teaspoon is perfect for a litre of water. A quart is close enough to a litre that you don't have to worry if that's what you have—just make sure it's a very full quart.

As you can see, this is all quite rough and approximate but I've found that it doesn't matter. You don't need precision, and your eyes (or nose) won't feel the difference. It's better to err on the side of a weaker solution if anything, because too much salt will make your eyes sting slightly whereas too little will just produce a vaguely uncomfortable suction until the osmotic pressures equalise (like the feeling of having distilled water or tap water in your eyes, but much less so). If you find that you've made a solution that's too strong, add more distilled water (which is why it's nice to have some spare).

Storage, procedures and precautions
Pay attention to the way your lenses feel in your eyes. If you start to notice any persistent scratchiness or eye pain, unusual dryness or anything out of the ordinary, go to your optometrist/opthalmologist immediately. Such symptoms could indicate the early stages of a dangerous infection. If you think I am being alarmist, read the letter below.

Keep the solution in a dark place and/or a dark bottle so that algae don't grow in it, which they definitely will when light is available (even if you can’t see them at first). Keep the lid tight. Don’t touch the rim against any surfaces when pouring or filling. I suggest refilling smaller squirt-bottles and using these on a day-to-day basis. You can often prise the cap off a commercial saline or disinfecting solution bottle and reuse it repeatedly as long as you maintain its sterility—but that’s the key. Sooner or later your plastic squirt-bottle will become infected, so you’ll have to fill it regularly with something like the home-brew sterilising mix, or possibly hydrogen peroxide, followed by plenty of rinsing with sterile saline. Don’t assume it will stay sterile on its own. Keep the caps and bottle tops away from surfaces. Open the bottles only briefly.

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2009 03:51PM by Jgunn.

I just use Celtic salt and water from the tea kettle.

I just use 1/2 tsp of salt and fill my pot to the top, but I suppose it depends on the size of your pot. You probably will want to experiment with quantity anyway, to find what's right for you.

wow, thanks everybody. seems like i can go complicated or easy. i think i'll try them both and see.

1/8 tsp salt + 1/8 tsp baking soda.

swear by it.

umm, you forgot to say how much water you add that too. i can't imagine stuffing a bunch of salt and baking soda up my snozz. ha.

neti pot?

f neti pot i just gather then into neat little lines, maan.

j/k

I fill the neti up with warm water. I believe it is about 1 cup of water. it is either one or two cups, but i think it only holds one cup. Yes, I am 98% sure it is a 1 cup container neti thingie. I got it at whole foods. I think i'm going to do it again tomorrow even though I'm not sick, and i'll report back. when I was sick I was all like i am going to do this every single day for the rest of my life it's so fantastic!!!! but now i am better i am not even doing it at all, lol!

"1/8 tsp salt + 1/8 tsp baking soda.
swear by it."

WHAT!! Are you serious? baking soda???
I have only ever heard that people use salt mixed with water(preferably natural sea salt with no additives). Never heard anyone would add baking soda. Why? And what would baking soda do?

And no. I wont try baking soda.

I am not sure why windy, it just works awesomely.

i have tried it with just salt before and it does not work as well in my opinion.

I heard about it from my teacher at school. she told me when i was sick to use salt and baking soda. at that time i was not even down to use the neti pot at all period. it was a strange concept for me.

baking soda didn't seem so strange though. I have used it for many things, and have heard of people using it for many things. a lot of people use it for cleaning things. baking soda rocks. it is not even that much 1/8 a tsp. it's like barely anything.

best results i have gotten from baking soda/ salt. i don't know why.

honestly i think the world would be a better place if everyone cleared their nasal passages with a neti pot every once in a while. it's awesome. i don't know why things like that make me feel so uncomfortable to think about. it seemed so strange before i tried it, and i was very adamate about not using it because i felt like it would feel very weird. i don't like to take medicines though, so i decided to try it before the doctor. so glad i did.

i wasn't sure what salt to use, so i just got the special neti pot salt at whole foods that was like 10 dollars that was next to the neti pot. i felt a little silly though when i opened it, and it just looked like regular table salt. the lady i lived with tasted it though and she said it was a little saltier then salt. i felt like a yuppie when i was buying it, i just wanted to be safe.

i'd try the baking soda, why not? i use it for everything else!