I agree that the “spiritual” benefit, or whatever you want to call it, is all the justification someone should need. But it is funny how we humans always seem to want something more concrete. I suppose a marketing blurb that said “it’s a chunk of rock, with a bulb in it!” is less appealing than selling some sort of mystical health benefit.

I had pretty much the same assumptions as you re: congestion defeating the neti pot. It seems counter-intuitive: if my sinuses are so blocked that I can barely draw air through, how can I flush them out with water? But I found even when I was nearly totally blocked (i.e.: almost had to breath through my mouth), I could still get water flowing between the nostrils. Probably the fact that I first started using a neti pot when I *was* that congested was a good thing- it showed me that (for the most part) I could still use it even then.

That said, I think in the midst of a cold I’d likely still use a nasal spray to open up the sinuses first, then the neti pot once some air is moving. The lavage just helps clear out the fluid and keeps things “flowing” , so the less accessible sinus cavities (the sphenoid and frontal sinuses) can start to clear out. For me this is a really good thing: I’m prone to getting “anaerobic infections” in the upper sinuses, which means I probably have constricted connections which can easily become completely stopped up. It may help to avoid that if I can keep stuff moving out consistently.

I read somewhere that our sinuses produce and flush out about a liter of mucous a day. That is… both amazing and disgusting at the same time. It also help me put in perspective the 250 ml of fluid I use with the neti pot.

I had very big doubts about my comfort level even trying the neti pot- I was contemplating it for about a year. But once I watched a few of those videos on Youtube, I figured the worst that would happen is I’d try it a couple of times and never want to try it again. I picked up the process pretty quickly: after two or three times, I wasn’t prone to the mistake of trying to breathe through my nose while cleansing, for example 🙂