The inside of the nose can be a dirty place! Apparently. I honestly never really gave it much thought, even though I’m in the healthcare profession. I mean, I deal with bodily fluids on a daily basis at the hospital, but I don’t like thinking about the stuff that comes out of my nose. Well, today we are going to go there! Yup, we are talking about the stuff that hangs out in those dark recesses of the nose.
Back in August, I wrote a blog about the importance of always breathing in and out through the nose. The nose acts to filter the air we breathe and is the first line of defense for trapping disease-causing pathogens before they reach our lungs. So, what happens to those germs once they are trapped in the nose? Well, many of them just set up shop there. They colonize and multiply and build condominiums I assume. And they love any chance they get to migrate to other parts of the body where they can expand their empire.
So, what can you do to improve the health of your nasal cavity? Well, one thing that I learned about recently is nasal sanitizers. It was during a hospital orientation that a representative for the Nozin product gave a presentation to a dozen or so of us nurses. This nasal sanitizer works to kill 99.9% of germs that it comes in contact with, and it is being currently used in many hospital settings.
I found the rationale for the development of the product to be very interesting. At some point, healthcare providers were researching the transmission for developing surgical site infections and determined that the strains of bacteria causing the surgical infections were the same strains found in the individual’s nose. Eww. Yes, those dirty germs found a highway from the nose to distant parts of the body.
In addition to nasal sanitizer products, I feel that salt therapy, or halotherapy, might also provide a certain degree of nasal health. We know that bacteria and other pathogens cannot live in a high-salt environment. I always like to use the example of what people did to preserve meat before the days of refrigeration. Well, they cured the meat in salt (think about jerky and how much salt it has).
One of the primary reasons that salt kills bacteria is by pulling all of the moisture away. It basically dehydrates the bacteria from the inside out. And from basic science, we know that most bacteria need moist environments to thrive. So, with that said it would reason that the fine particles of salt that line the nasal cavity during a halotherapy session might also kill off some of those nasty germs.
For more information on salt therapy, visit our website at salteddesert.com or just stop by.
Stay safe and be well,
