If anybody knows a way to safely impale my forehead with one of those maple syrup spigots and drain the fluid build-up in my sinuses out, I’d appreciate a Youtube tutorial on how to do that and not die, thanks.
Selkie in a bad 80s cop movie: "YOU'RE A LOOSE CANNON, SMITH! TURN IN YOUR BADGE!" "The wholes SYSTEMS is a loose cannons!"
Dunno about the maple syrup spigot thing, but I do have a power drill with an 18-inch-long quarter-inch bit that you’re welcome to borrow.
I’ve thought about a mini vacuum hose a time or two.
They do have them for really serious cases (as I was when I was a teenager).
The problem is that the relief is only for 10-15 minutes.
Neti pots can be some relief, but make absolutely sure to use distilled water and keep the pot impeccably clean.
I’ll second this. I’ve had sinus problems for years and was constantly getting infections. Used a neti pot, and have been using it regularly, no problems since.
There’s also various saline spray versions, plus a squeeze bottle version. Those can provide a bit more pressure if you need some extra help getting through sinus mess.
Mucinex-D and a saline nasal spray. Not kidding. That will do it.
And I love Todd’s reaction. He’s as dramatic as Selkie when he wants to be!
He has a real flair for getting through to Selkie, when he reaallly wants her attention.
Also some folks agree to take an anti-allergy medication like Clear-a-tine-D (you know who I mean) for the week or two or three that Rag Weed season lasts. The alternative suggestion from the health food crowd is often to cut down on eating the meat, cut OUT All the cheese and milk in your diet, just for the week before hay fever starts to when it’s over, and when it’s over you can go back to yer regular diet.
I’d link an old Billy and Mandy cartoon, but it’s pitch black humor and has cartoon violence, like, Itchy and Scratchy style almost. For those curious, look up “Trepanation of the Skull and You”
When you color it, you might consider sticking an apostrophe in panel two. “I’ll see you tomorrow” would make more sense than “Ill see you tomorrow”.
A hot towel across your forehead and nose area will loosen things up and relieve the pressure.
Gene seconds this sugg.
Neti pot. Sit over steam with a towel over your head. Dry rice in a sock, microwaved until pretty hot and pressed against your face and forehead. Traditional Medicinal tea called Breathe Easy, can be found in the allergic/gluten-free etc section of the store if they have it. Doesn’t taste very good though, so add sugar or honey. All of these have been successful, but my personal favorite is the rice sock. Also useful if you have a stiff neck, or just can’t get warm in the winter. Drape it around your neck.
Have you tried Afrin? It’s a nasel spray decongestent, work WONDERS, and won’t keep you awake at night like Sudafed. But be careful, it’s really easy to overdo. One spray, wait 5 minutes. If your sinuses don’t clear, one more spray, wait 5 minutes.
I have SEVERE adverse reactions to allergy medicine (even children’s benadryl) and sinus decongestents (my system can’t handle artificial stimulants AT ALL, and am hyper-sensitive to even natural stimulants like caffiene)…. PLUS I have a chest deformity and suffer from chronic recurrant bilateral spontaneous pneumothorax (both lung just collapse. cuz they wanna. It’s from damage from a botched surgery)…… so any kind of upper respiratory congestion is SERIOUS BUSINESS for me. I’ve also had pneumonia a couple times, and my chest/lungs are weak from my other issues, that it’s hard to cough.
I use Robetussin expectorant (say what you want about tussin… if you literally have no other options, you’ll learn to tolerate the taste)… And I’ve found that straight oregano essential oil dropped into the boiler pot of a warm steam humidifier (must be the warm steam type)… helps IMMENSELY any time me, or the kids, or my partner have congestion. We’ll cough a bunch at first, but a lot of the mucus balls up and comes OUT. The oregano diffused this way, gets into the affected tissues and kills the infection. I don’t use that stuff for much else, other than that, but it’s a life-saver. (it also stinks, but…like the tussin…. it works, so we deal with it.)
If you don’t like the taste of the cough syrup, the same medication comes in a pill form, sold under brand name Mucinex. Generics are also available. You want the straight Mucinex, NOT Mucinex-D. The -D stands for “decongestant” and is combined with Sudafed.
Another advantage to the pills is they come in extended release versions that last 12 hours.
Pepper spray. My brother had a terrible sinus infection in basic training until he went into the gas chamber and took off his mask. Immediately cured it from the rapid drainage.
In case you don’t care if the cure is worse than the disease.
That was my observation with tear gas in the “confidence chamber”. EVERYTHING you had anywhere near your nasal passages came out. All of it. If you didn’t have any, your nose would make some just so you could play, too.
Other than that, it wasn’t too bad, although we were using actual tear gas, not pepper spray.
Yea, its basically emptying a giant can of mace into the room. Not sure if mace is commercially available, but pepper spray is.
the gas chamber ISN’T pepper spray, Its CS gas. CS gas is neither pepper spray nor MACE. its 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile its generally not lethal
Jalapeno chips clear out the sinus pretty good.
My aunt accidentally got a deep sniff of cocktail sauce once that accomplished the same, haha.
I judge spicy foods by how much my nose drips. If it’s not dripping, it’s not spicy enough.
Mentioned this to one guy once and he went “TMI” and I’m like “wait, why is a drippy nose taboo now?” Ah well. But yes, spicy foods are nice for that!
Huh, even when he’s reasonably mad he uses humor.
……the way Todd is drawn impeccably captures the “I would love nothing more than to hand down the sweet, sweet punishing justice from the Heavens that shakes the Earth and makes Hell tremble, but I’m a responsible father and I love her (although I don’t particularly *LIKE* her right now) so I am going to convey my feelings with a quiet calm, and dignity. When we get home, the Demon may get to voice his opinions but for now let me be a reminder to all children why you *never* do something like this to your parents” aesthetic.
Makes me nervous, honestly. If I didn’t already know Todd never gets physical (and this isn’t that kind of comic), I’d legit be worried about Selkie right now.
Oh, you could probably live through a careful face-spiggoting, if we don’t drive them too deep into your brain. Even then, there’s a good chance you won’t actually die, but then we get into that whole “quality of life” sliding scale discussion….
I’ll get my hammer. ^_^
Not sure if having your sinuses clogged with blood will be much better than being clogged with mucus, but hey, your call. 😛
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I think all the serious advice I might have offered has already been covered. I even learned a couple new ones I might try with a patient of mine. He’s had cold-like symptoms like congestion going on four straight YEARS. Nothing seems to provide more than temporary relief, and none of the doctors he’s seen seem to be able to do anything about it.
So, count your blessing, ya? 😉
Surgical drainage of sinuses is actually a thing. The drawback is that it leaves scar tissue, which makes the next period of congestion even worse, and so has to be repeated at least once a year. Not recommended if any other option can provide any kind of relief.
Saw the magician Rudy Coby drive a nail into his nostril once. He was like “It’s a trick! it’s fake! don’t try this at home!” and all, but later on (over a decade later) I started thinking twice about this, and looked at how much space is in the sinus cavity, and I think you probably could drive a nail into your nose and not hit anything.
I’m not sure on this point, and Don’t Try This at Home.
keisha shouldn´t tease selkie, agter all it was also HER idea to play matchmaker…..also, for your sinuses: gel-capsules containing menthol and eucalyptus oil. makes everything taste funny, but after you swallowed them every breath is like inhaling from the inside for the next 8-10 hours. less hassle then a neti pot
Dave, that 5th panel line is just begging for some font effects, don’t you think?
Cut&Paste this, if you like…
[img]https://i.imgur.com/6aeGVVx.png[/img]
(And now, we experiment to see which code works…)
https://i.imgur.com/6aeGVVx.png
Image Embedding Experiment results:
-BBC code rendered as regular text.
-html code removed entirely.
-direct link address became a functional URL… yet somehow migrates to the bottom of the post. Odd.
Doesn’t seem like image embedding is permitted. Well, I suppose this explains the lack of memes in the comments here. Seems like a lost opportunity; fans could be making Selkie memes and sharing them with each other, right here.
Oh well…
I need to figure out the links/images thing honestly. I’ve been getting around it by manually editing posts to permit it, since I myself CAN link images in comments.
(looks above)
That may be too large an image for the comment thread. That’s on me. (Though I HAVE seen forums and comment threads where images are auto-shrunk to fit).
I wanted to make it high enough resolution that if you DID just want to cut& paste it straight into panel 5, it wouldn’t be pixelly. 😛
Shrank it.
Haha, I like how Todd still has a sense of humor.
Normally that s is when I’d say it can’t possibly get any worse, but we’re already there
Decongestants and nasal sprays all scare me with their side-effects. But nasal irrigation? Turns out it actually works. I was skeptical… but I went from can’t ever breathe through my nose to can-usually
Nasal irrigation if not done with truly pure (ie distilled water) can be quite dangerous however.
Yeah there’s a bunch of caveats. It’s also not much fun trying to warm the water up. But you can get these fancy bottles with a spring-loaded valve at the top so it’s easier to control the water, for super cheap.
Also it doesn’t have to necessarily be distilled, just previously boiled. Got an electric kettle, you’re good.
Well first, the spigot doesn’t go in the forehead, the sinus are much lower.
And second, the horrible little things are only about the size of a grape, so you don’t need much to drain them. I personally favor some salsa, or NyQuil synex nasal spray.
Wasabi.
Literally go eat some Wasabi at a sushi joint. Not only is Wasabi astringent and somewhat disinfectant, but the raw burn tends to clear sinuses quite easily. 😛
Horseradish does the same, but is not as astringent as Wasabi. Of course the “Wasabi” you get at most places in the States is faked with Horseradish anyway.
Vicks Vaporub works wonders, especially those little packets that get put into a humidifier.
And lastly since no one else has mentioned it, have you seen your Primary Care Physician? To determine if this is a sinus infection or just allergies? Although most of the treatments mentioned here work for both, if you let the allergies build up long enough, you could end up with an infection then needing a Z-pack, and dear Heavens above, you don’t want that.
Neti pot/saline spray, steam, sinus drain massage (alternate pressure between the spot between your eyebrows and the roof of your mouth), mucinex-d and allergy pills, hot compress on your forehead.
Throw your head back, take a deep breath, pinch your nostrils closed, hold your breath as long as you can, if you need to swallow do so. keep holding your breath. we are tricking your body into draining sinuses naturally. once your face is blue breath and test your nose. if still clogged, repeat.
So now Todd’s got jokes?
Dad jokes.
Oy …
Get some Chinese or Mexican food, and order it “us” extra-spicy. Savor each bite, and make sure to have tea handy. When you’re at your limit, put the rest in the fridge for next time.
Great expression on Selkie in that last panel.