SRS, do this.

Steam up the bathroom and run a sinkful of hot water. As hothothot as you can stand to touch. While the steam is filling the loo, get the Neti ready (all but the last of the water) and set three washcloths to hand.

Sit in the still-steaming loo and put the washcloths into the sinkful (OK, panful for you germophobics). Take one out and wring it semi-mushy-wet/dry, and apply it to the whole sinus-mask area. It will feel SO GOOD. Breathe that steam and the shower's steam, thru your mouth. Don't try that nostril just yet. Just enjoy the moist heat there for now.

Toss that cloth back into the hot sinkful as soon as it starts to cool, take the next cloth, then the third. If this is the correct-for-you approach, it won't open your sinus yet but you will be almost orgasmically relieved of a great deal of the misery. Persist!

Repeat this in succession until you feel the stuff in the sinuses start to shift. The next steps need to be done more quickly, so be ready.

Now take TWO of the cloths in succession and apply briefly then blow, very gently, right into them. You want not to empty the goop but just start it moving. Discard them into a washpile as you go.

Top off the Neti just enough to get the temp right; apply that third cloth as you did the first two; start the Neti after the third cloth is applied and blown.

That oughtta get you access to the sinuses, get your favorite Neti solution moving thru them, and give you a good wet noseful to gently blow out afterwards.

It will all solidify again as soon as you leave that steamy loo, but you will have gotten the Neti-full thru it, and that should start the sinus passages on recovering.

You can do this several times a day. You will probably want to do a whole facial, too, because you also will have opened your skin pores quite a bit.

How I know this is that I regularly do most of these steps sitting comfortably in my health club's hot tub, except that what comes out of my nose nevernevernever goes into the hot tub water. Try it once and you will be hooked.

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I woke up smart this AM (Faulkner confirms that), and I will post in a bit about the things I need to do to keep myself moving forward-- it will all sound quite silly but it's a HUGE "Missing Link" (bocaccinos) and I need to write about it. It will help if each person who reads that post just sends me a PM letting me know they SAW it.

~Susan