I'm using a nasal spray and a nasal rinse - you might want to also

I don't do my own research, but I like to do a good literature review now and then.¹ 

Back in the fall, an old friend who is now a retired physician, told us that she has started using nasal sprays and nasal rinses to prevent COVID-19 and other respiratory infections like flu and RSV.

The idea of spraying or rinsing my nose made me shudder but I thought I should check it out and now I am a convert.

Literature Review

There are more papers on this topic than you or I can keep track of. But all of the ones I've seen conclude that nasal sprays and nasal rinses can dramatically lower the chance of someone getting COVID-19 and other infections and that nasal rinses can also reduce the severity of an infection that has started. Furthermore, there are no apparent harms caused by the sprays or rinses they are testing.

Nasal spray with Iota-Carageenan (I-C):  A 2021 pilot study concluded "a nasal spray with I-C showed significant efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in health care workers managing patients with COVID-19 disease."

Nasal spray with azelastine: An 8-week trial in Germany concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 [or COVID-19] infections was significantly lower with application of azelastine nasal spray compared with placebo treatment."

Nasal spray with other ingredients: An article from OneDayMD titled 8 Best Anti-COVID Nasal Sprays (2024) lists Povidone Iodine Nasal Spray as their #1 choice.²

Nasal rinse (or irrigation): A 2024 paper from China recommends "that saline nasal irrigation is an effective, safe and convenient strategy to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 [or COVID-19] and alleviate the symptoms of URTI [upper respiratory tract infections] across various age groups."  

To spray or to rinse

I follow the lead of my doctor friend. Before I am encountering other people, I use my nasal spray. It's one quick spritz in each nostril and a quick wipe with my handkerchief. When the encounter is over, I spritz again.

The nasal spray is fast and easy and not at all uncomfortable. In fact, with the dry winter air, it kind of feels good.

If I have a big day with lots of in-person encounters, I also do a nasal rinse in the evening. It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it does feel like it was a good thing to do, but I have to acknowledge that it is kind of unpleasant and requires more fussing around. 

To rinse, you squeeze the bottle of saline solution so that half of it goes up one nostril and drains through the other one. Then you switch nostrils for the second half of the bottle. Yes. It is kind of gross. But you do it all alone, over the sink in the bathroom with the door closed. And it's really not so bad. Not like that time you snorted cream soda up your nose because someone made you laugh.  

For more information on this topic, you might want to read Nasal Rinse vs. Nasal Spray: What’s the Difference? at allergyxrinse.com. 

My nasal spray choice: Salinex Protect

I've gone with Salinex Protect. It has Iota-Carageenan, it's not too expensive and it's carried at the ubiquitous Shoppers Drug Mart. (It's probably carried at other places like IDA and Rexall drugstores, but they have really bad search engines on their websites.) 

I would really like to use a nasal spray with azelastine. It's got strong research behind it and there have been articles saying that it's an approved over-the-counter thing in Canada, but I cannot find it anywhere. It's not just a really-bad-search-engine problem, I've gone to various pharmacies and checked the ingredients on all their nasal sprays.³

I have a hunch that just about any saline nasal spray would be a good idea, but I'm not ready to start using one of the allergy-relief ones that have cortico-steroids.

My nasal rinse choice: Life Brand Nasal Rinse & Squeeze Bottle System

A lot of people use a neti pot for nasal irrigation. The lovely Manon suggested to me that the fuss of cleaning a Neti Pot made it not worth its reusability and this made a lot of sense to me.

I have invested in the Life Brand Nasal Rinse & Squeeze Bottle System from Shoppers. As mentioned, it requires a bit of fussing around, but not much really. And it's a little unpleasant to do, but not very. I bet I'll get used to it.

Conclusion

It's December 2025, I haven't had COVID-19 and I will continue to make efforts to keep it that way.

Halloween Preparation

I'm happy to say that we managed to complete the Halloween display for our porch yesterday afternoon. Although it did not go so well for the garden gnomes.

The lovely Manon likes to go traditional and used a knife, but I found that my oscillating mult-crafter tool made cutting a pumpkin extremely easy! 

Late October Stick Library News

Closing for the season...

With the end of October on its way, the Stick Librarian has decided that today is the last day of 2025 for the Stick Library.

It was a terrific year for the library.

Stick Library 2025 

Borrowed: >232 sticks + 4 tennis balls

Returned (or donated): too many for us to count!

The stick library is closing until Spring 2026

Thank you for your patronage!

XOXOX 💗! 

{with a QR code that links to the Google Maps page} 

 

A successful plant re-homing

On October 1, the Stick Librarian decided it was a good time to have a plant give-away to find new homes for some excess house plants. In only a few hours, new homes were found for:

• 5 peace lilies,
• 2 Thanksgiving cacti,
• a Rosemary,
• a lucky heart hoya,
• a kalenchoe,
• an aloe vera,
• a lace aloe,  and
• a chenille. 

Is this Siberian elm tree really okay?

Back in July, a City of Ottawa Forestry inspector came at my request and checked out the Siberian elms next to our house. I was particularly concerned about this one because it had a big brown streak on the trunk and the leaves did not seem to be doing well. 

The inspector assured me that both elms looked great to him and were doing fine.

But yesterday, we got an indication that this Siberian elm is not happy. It is definitely more threatening if you ask me.

My new marble shelf

I have a new marble shelf in the window of my studio.

I've been wanting to make a lot of things in the past while and when I opened a box that had lots of old jam jars with marbles in them, I decided it was time to act on this project.

So I cut some old wood scraps to the right size, got out more jars and marbles from my jar and marble hordes, painted things, drilled holes, and stuck everything together.

Now we just have to figure out what will go on top of the new shelf.

 

Microwaved egg with grape leafs and chili crisp

I believe that I have invented a new food treat: microwaved egg with grape leafs and chili crisp. 

I tried Google, DuckDuckGo and Bing and did not find anything that described this treat. (Of course, someone else might have already invented it and posted it to the internet, but search engines have become so bad that it is not findable. Anyway...) 

Ingredients:

• 2 steamed grape leafs
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon of chili crisp

Instructions:

1. Put one of the steamed grape leafs on the bottom of a small bowl. (In advance, you will have picked a bunch of young, intact grape leafs from the grapevine outside your porch, removed the stems, rinsed the leafs, steamed them for a few minutes and then put them in a container in your fridge.)
2. Dollop a teaspoon of chili crisp on the grape leaf. You can smear it around a bit, but you don't have to.  (Laoganma Spicy Chili Crisp will be fine if you don't have a jar you made yourself or one of the really exquisite brands.)
3. Crack an egg and drop everything except the shell on top of the grape leaf and chili crisp.
4. Either leave the yolk intact, or break it with a piece of egg shell. Your choice. 
5. Cover the egg with a second grape leaf.
6. Cover the small bowl with a small plate. (Coverage is important, the egg will splatter even with the top grape leaf.)
7. Put the covered bowl in your microwave oven, set the timer and turn it on. (45 seconds is just right for me, but you might want to experiment to get the result that is perfect for you.)

Outcome - A delicious treat

I love having one of these with my breakfast savoury oatmeal mélange. I am confident that this treat would also be a great addition to toast, fried rice, hash browns and many other foods suitable for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a mid-meal snack.

Please let me know if you try this and what you ate it with! 

It's time to hang out the laundry...

With the unrelenting heat, it seemed like a good idea to put my wet laundry outside instead of running the drier.

It occurred to me that this is the first time since June 1986 when I left Ghana that my laundry has been hung outside to dry.

1984 - My housemate Ampofu's laundry hanging in the courtyard of our staff bungalow at Okuapemman Secondary School in Ghana, West Africa.

2025 - My laundry hung on the patio of my home in Ottawa, Ontario.

You might notice that in neither set of outside laundry are there any socks.