Comments on: Neti Pot Danger

By: maria

maria — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 08:53:36 +0000

i put some zinc in my neti (changed brands) and now have very painful sinuses (sorry for the misspelling). my eyes are watering, my nose is burning and running and my ears are plugged up. any suggestions?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:13:06 +0000

At my allergist’s urging, I began to use the neti-pot. was fine for a few weeks, then I developed a sinus infection. That went away on its own, or maybe it just migrated, because now I am dealing with an earache. I have a little bit of a stuffy nose, but other than that, no other cold symptoms are accompanying this. I have yet to decide if I am going to call the doctor and make an appointment. Some of the people I have talked to have had massive sinus infections from using the pot, this seems to be a common ailment. I guess I don’t have a question, I just wanted others to know what is going on from my experience with the ‘wondrous neti pot’.

By: Etta

Etta — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:50:20 +0000

Follow up: The saltiness didn’t disappear with the road salt. Saw ENT who diagnosed sinus infection. Saltiness did eventually go away after several weeks’ treatment with antibiotic.
I did notice later, however, that after using the neti pot, I tend to retain some of the fluid in my head/sinuses. Up to a good half hour later, more would drain out if I bent down to pick something up, basically with my , head almost vertically down. So it seems that the structure of my head/sinuses is such that I need to be bent over double before the fluid fully exits. (I have a deviated septum which may or may not be a factor in this.)
My theory about the infection is that it happened in a manner similar to the ear infection described above–namely, the solution spread the infection into uninfected areas of the sinus and, since the fluid did not drain but remained there, caused the infection in the sinuses instead of flushing the infected matter out.