Beating Sinus Headaches Through Natural Medicine
Posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under Natural Medicine |
Ouch! If you’ve ever had a sinus headache you know the sheer pain. The throbbing, the pressure and it tends to localize directly over the eyes and the front of the head where the sinuses are located. A full 20% of Americans suffer from sinus headaches on a regular basis. Treatments for those headaches range from antibiotics in the case of a full blown sinus infection, surgery for extreme cases, prescription medications that carry side effects ranging from sleepiness to nausea and last but not least, natural remedies.
One of the most common ways that sinus headaches are caused is when a person has a mild sinus infection and they blow their nose too hard. The hard blowing spreads the infection throughout the nose and ears and makes it worse. One secret for beating sinus headaches is to keep the cilia in your nasal cavity working at optimum levels. The cilia sweep debris to the back of the throat where it swallowed and disposed of in the stomach. A very efficient system when it’s in top working order. However, an abundance of mucous, smoking and age can render cilia unable to do an effective job. A home remedy that many people use to clean their cilia is nasal irrigation with a homemade saline solution and distilled water. There are commercial mixtures you can purchase but one that you make yourself will have zero preservatives.
The basic mixture is using half a teaspoon of salt or sea salt as you prefer, half a teaspoon of baking soda - this acts as a buffer in case your water is hard or acidic, one teaspoon of white Karo syrup and mix all of this together in one pint of warm water.
Use either a nasal pot (it looks like a long spouted tea pot) or a large bulb syringe. Stand over your sink and hang your head forward as the water is going to run out your mouth. Put the tip of the pot or syringe in your nose and gently pour the contents of the pot or squeeze the syringe and let the contents pass through your nose and out your mouth. If you feel the urge to swallow, stop and let your mouth clear. Do one side at a time and you’ll discover a huge relief in the pressure and pain you’ve been experiencing.
Do this whenever you feel a sinus headache coming on and you’ll find your natural, pain free way to make your sinus headaches a thing of the past!