My Vicious Cycle

I am stuck in a vicious cycle. No, it's not drugs or alcohol I'm addicted to. It's nasal inhalers.

Here's the deal: my sinuses are screwed up. This is not an opinion -- it's a medically confirmed fact, as evidenced by the fact that I had semi-successful surgery on my nose (and they stuck a 6 inch piece of gauze up each of my nostrils -- I swear it must have been touching my brain). Given the screwed up sinus passages, even a minimal amount of mucus buildup in my nose tends to impair my breathing. Not being able to breathe means not sleeping well. Not sleeping well means I am grumpy and want to cut your head off with a sword.

And thus, in with the nasal inhaler, superhero style (*trumpets*). One squirt at night, and one of my nasal passages opens up blissfully, allowing me to sleep and allowing you to keep your head. However, this has two big downsides. One, repeated use of nasal inhalers causes swelling, which makes subsequent nights worse (unless nasal inhaler is used again). And two, repeated use of nasal inhaler weakens the nasal walls, making me even more prone to nosebleeds than I normally am (which is pretty prone). Nosebleeds means more buildup, and thus more need for nasal inhaler.

So as you can see, I am stuck in a vicious cycle. If I don't use my nasal inhaler, I don't sleep and all sorts of bad things happen. If I do use it, then I just make it that much more likely I'll need to use it again. I keep planning to suck it up and not use it for a week, but after one sleepless night my inhibitions are lowered to the point where I can't refuse the seductive lure of the nasal inhaler.

My name is Alex. And I am a nasalinhalerholic.