OneAndOneIs2

I don't often get them. I've had so many I'm mostly immune now. But every now and again, one slips through. I escaped them at my first school but now at my second, one got me.

The thing that really annoys me about them is the snot.

You make so much of it that you can't breathe. If you try and get rid of it to the point that you can, you (a) dehydrate and (b) get inflamed nasal tissues that struggle to cope with the demand, so even if there's no snot there's still no option of breathing through your nose.

Eventually, I usually cave in and take decongestants. And sure enough, they do stop the vicious cycle of snot production.

Totally.

So your sinuses start to feel like they're being sandpapered as dry air flows over their unprotected-by-mucous surface.

The only time you feel halfway human is when you take a long shower and inhale warm steamy air for a while. But that only lasts so long.

Yesterday, I couldn't take any more. I have a small kettle in my room, bought when I needed hot water to shave in. Redundant ever since. I took the lid off, filled it with water, and turned it on.

Lid stayed off.

Every so often, I added a drop of olbas oil and topped it up with more water. (Olbas oil is, by the way, a really good thing to apply to animal ticks. Even better than white spirit!) The room was warmed just by the steam, and my breathing eased a bit. I thought after a while tho that it had evaporated away.

Then I left the room for a minute. Came back in with dry sinuses and inhaled a mercifully humid, warm lungful of olbas-scented air.

First decent night's sleep I've had in days...