t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.

12.28.2010

Bringing the Ocean Home


A couple weeks ago this little gadget arrived in the mail.  The SinuPulse.   It is a nasal irrigation system.  Our ENT has been recommending we do saline washes in the children's noses for years, and the specialists in Denver reemphasized the importance.  

If only we could just move to Hawaii.  It seems like it would solve so many problems...sigh...

I ordered a probe for everyone in the family (Berekley's is the gentle mister).  I have been very pleased with the results.  I feel I have far less mucus.  We will see about sickness prevention.  Emmett and Ellery both have exacerbations right now.  This is so easy to do.  You just fill the reservoir with salt water and the probe in one nostril.  Turn it on until the water flows out the other nostril.  It is a bit gross, but like so many gross things, it has that hint of satisfaction as well.

The big selling point on the Sinupulse as compared to competitors, is that it pulses the saline solution with the same beat frequency as your cilia.  Well, that sold me.  With three kids with nonfunctioning cilia, this is just the ticket...until we can find a house with a saltwater pool or afford to move to the ocean.

In one of my heartfelt weekly chats with our ENT, Dr. Heidi Heras, who is by far my favorite doctor ever, she agrees if we can get the kids in a warm salty breeze, and knock the junk out of the sinuses and ears it could do them wonders.    Emmett's ears have not stopped draining since we inserted tubes.  Both tubes are clogged.  This Thursday they will try to clean and open his tubes under anesthesia.  Ellery has been in constant pain for almost 4 months with her ears.  It is baffling to the doctors.  Her hearing however has improved by 30 decibels since we replaced her tubes.  

The ears are such a constant drain and worry, I tend to forget about their lungs, a dangerous thing to do.  The lungs just don't give them pain, it is hard not to become swamped by trying to alleviate the pain in the ears.  I am battling for an answer.  I don't have any yet.

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