NeilMed WARNING!

Ok so I had heard that rinsing with a sinus rinse and gargling with salt water would help prevent the flu. One day when I felt a little sore throat coming on I decided to do so. Kevin has a NeilMed nasal rinse so I was set. It was my first time doing this and it couldn't be that complicated right? Well it isn't, but it's me you are talking about. . . :) I was trying to just go for it and rinse my sinus right out. I pushed the negative pressure bottle so hard up my nose it went right through my ear popping as it went. Kevin told me "um. . . . you weren't supposed to do it that hard. . . " Well the next day my ear started to hurt and progressively get worse. That night when I got off work I was in excruciating pain! Kevin looked up some things on line and we determined I had a bad case of swimmer's ear. We tried putting rubbing alcohol in my ear to evaporate the water, warm oil and heating pads to ease the pain, but noting worked. The next morning at the insta-care we found out that I had an ear infection. I got antibiotics and numbing drops. Nothing seemed to be helping though. The pain kept getting worse and it spread to the back of my ear, down my neck and down my jaw. One night it got so bad I almost went to the emergency room. We didn't do that though, I ended up taking a lortab that I had from a previous prescription. Anyway to make the story shorter I went to the insta-care again and the Dr. said the fluid got into by mastoid sinus, which is a sinus behind your ear and the infection had just spread. I got a boost of antibiotics and they said just to keep taking the pain pills. It wasn't serious unless the pain got worse after that visit. I'm doing pretty good now with the pain under control despite the clogged ear still and ringing, but it seems to be nothing serious. Kevin also was a great husband and took really good care of me, Thank you Kevin! But just a warning to those rinsing for the first time, DO NOT squeeze the negative pressure bottle up your nose, just lightly push.