Table of Contents
Before we talk more about Xylitol Nasal Spray, lets first describe what Xylitol is.
What Is Xylitol?
By chemical structure, Xylitol is a sugar alcohol. It is manufactured from xylose, which is a wood sugar. Human body naturally produces about 10 grams of it daily. So, it cannot be considered a drug. It is also well known by its beneficial properties in fighting tooth decay.
It is used as a substitute for the sugar in various foods. Most popular is a Xylitol gum. Popularity of this sugar is growing every day. It important to mention that Xylitol is poisonous to dogs. Keep all the products containing Xylitol away from your dogs and other pets. This also goes for the xylitol mints about which you can also read on our website. Xylitol candy is also popular choice of sweets you can give children to decrease their sugar intake and reduce the number of cavities they get.
Food and Drug administration has a rule which classifies as a drug any substance which is used to heal or prevent an illness. This rule prevents marketing Xylitol as preventing tooth decay. But, it actually does.
Why Is Your Nose So Important?
Cleaning the nose by using fluids is a medical practice that has a history which spans several hundred years. It is both safe and natural way to treat symptoms of sinus congestion and sinusitis. This is one of the reasons why xylitol nasal spray is so good.
Nose is a breathing entry to the body. We all breathe as much as 3000 gallons of air every day. Your nose is also an entry point for all kinds of pollution. The bacteria that develops inside your nose and lungs can also find their way into the ear canal or even the sinuses and cause infections there. Irritants produced there are one of the common causes of asthma or allergies.
Everyone has natural tools available to clean these damaging products and lower the chance to becoming ill.
There exists a great way now to enhance this process naturally and clean the nose area to help remove the bacteria that are the cause of an infection. Cleaning the nose whenever needed is helping to combat the infection and also the irritants which are causing allergies and asthma.
Whenever a nose is the starting point of the problem that someone has, it is a good strategy to clean it regularly as part of the treatment. Sometimes even, that can prevent the issue altogether.
How Xylitol Nasal Spray Works?
It boils down to a couple of reasons why Xylitol Nasal Spray works so good:
- Xylitol prevents some bacteria to attach themselves to the cells in a nose and thus lowers the number of infections that can develop,
- It has a stimulative effect to the natural washing of the nose, which is in essence our natural defensive mechanism,
- It also reduces the concentration of salt on the inner surface of the nose. This makes antibiotics more effective.
How Does Xylitol Nasal Spray Help Against Infections?
Let us now dig deeper on how these new medical concepts work. Bacterial infections are usually dealt with by using antibiotics. This is the common and preferred way of treating them.
The general problem with antibiotics is that they are more and more becoming resistant to antibiotics commonly in use. Older generations of antibiotics are particularly affected with the problem. This translates to a downward spiral of efficacy where the more we use antibiotics the less effective they become.
The problem with bacterial becoming immune to a typical antibiotics treatment is one of the prevalent problems in medicine we face today. The consequences of it are expected to mount with time passing unless an alternative is discovered.
The bacteria that enter our body from the outside environment are first looking to attach themselves to our body. They attach to a particular sugars or sugar complexes that are commonly found on the surfaces of the cells in our body.
When Xylitol sugar or other alternative sugar are introduced in the places where bacteria gathers, this causes bacteria to attach to these external sugars and greatly lowers the number of bacteria that attaches to our body cells. For several problem causing bacteria this is exactly what Xylitol as a sugar alcohol does.
Giving Xylitol in regular doses to the bacteria which usually inhabit the back of our noses has an effect that lowers the number of bacteria. There has also been shown that some bacteria strains become altered or conditioned to have a milder effect on human body than before.
What Effect Does Xylitol Nasal Spray Have On Allergies?
Asthma and allergies start with the irritants that accumulate in the nose. The most basic thing you can do to them is wash them out.
Here are some ideas that better describe effects of this product on allergies:
- When you have a runny nose, that is your body’s way of cleaning various irritants from the nose.
- The number of airway problem a person experiences including allergenic and infectious is closely related to the use of drugs that act by blocking natural nasal cleaning process.
- It is based on idea that stimulating this natural protective mechanism is better than to block it.
- The extension of the previous idea is that it is better to support other body defenses is a healthier approach.
- The reduction of the problems can be achieved by removing the triggers that cause asthma and allergies by cleaning the nose regularly.
Chewing Xylitol gum reduces ear infections by as much as 40% when chewed 4 times a day. Xylitol has an effect on bacteria which are resident in the nose before they become spread in the ears.
The commons sense is to put Xylitol in the place where bacteria reside. This decreases the amount of Xylitol that is needed by about 200 times, compared to when used orally. It has been shown in practice to reduce ear infections by 93%.
How To Properly Use The Xylitol Nasal Spray?
First rule is don’t forget about using it once you feel better. Chances are the problems will just gradually return to the point where they were before. What you can do is slowly decrease the frequency of use, but still use it in regular intervals. For example, use it twice a day and increase the number of daily uses if you again begin to experience the problem. This is how you can keep your problem in check and prevent it from again developing in full.
You can compare using Xylitol Nasal Spray to washing hands. It needs to be done every day to ensure the nose is clean. Just like a soap for a nose.
Here are the steps that show how to use it:
- Tilt the head forward,
- Place the tip of the Xylitol Nasal Spray into the nose opening,
- Target the spray bottle to aim for the back of the head,
- sniff (inhale briskly) and use the spray at the same time,
- Repeat for the second side of the nose.
If spray is used by the children, they should be supervised and helped by the parents at all times, at least until they master the way to do it properly on their own. Take note to actually confirm the spray was delivered to their nose.
If it is given to an infant, who of course cannot sniff, baby should be laid down after spraying. This enables to solution to reach the back of the nose where it is the most effective. One recommendation would be to use this product with each diaper change. This spray is also safe for pregnant women or while nursing.