The cold season of many parents is often associated not only with autumn leaf fall, winter games of snowballs and the first spring thaw, but also with unpleasant colds, manifested by high fever, headache, and bed rest.
Probably, each person will easily remember how he was taken to hospitals and pharmacies in his childhood, buying medicinal syrups, herbs, tablets and saline solution for sodium chloride inhalation. A child with his transient immunity is much easier to get sick than an adult. The lower the age, the more carefully you should consider the choice of medicines, because, as you know, modern pharmacology considers the main goal to cure the disease at any cost, despite an impressive list of side effects. One of the safest ways to ease the course of the disease is to use saline solution for inhalation.
Saline solution, so widely used in medicine, is a NaCl salt dissolved in water - yes, ordinary table salt. In relation to human blood plasma, it is isotonic, that is, its osmotic pressure does not affect cells in any way, allowing them to function normally without accumulating or losing fluid. Salt is involved in many processes of intercellular interaction. It is easy to guess that, if necessary, you can save and not buy pharmacy saline in ampoules, but make it yourself. To do this, 9 grams of salt is dissolved in one liter of water. It is important to understand that in this case there is no complete interchangeability: although both solutions are very similar, there are some features. For example, industrial production implies sterile conditions, distilled water, the exact dosage (in fact, NaCl in water is not 0.9, but 0.89%).
An affordable way to eliminate many of the symptoms of a cold is by inhaling the vapor or atomized particles of the drug. A large number of them provides the maximum area of contact with the affected areas of the nasopharynx. Additionally, a favorable warming effect is provided. Before starting a course of inhalation, you need to consult a doctor, as there are a number of contraindications: frequent nosebleeds, problems with the cardiovascular system, hypertension, and some others.
The use of a liquid medicinal substance, which may be saline for inhalation, at home is performed with a special inhaler. Now its second name is more common - the nebulizer (from the Latin Nebula - the nebula). As an alternative, you can do something simpler: boil water in a pan, add saline solution for inhalation and, covering your head with a towel, breathe steam. Effectively enough, but as they say, the old fashioned way, so not everyone accepts this method. For young children, it is still recommended to purchase an inhaler.
Despite the fact that saline solution for inhalation is not a medicine in the usual meaning of the word, nevertheless, its amazing properties should be recognized. As you know, salt has a thinning effect, stretching pus. Therefore, the inhalation of a vaporous NaCl solution relieves swelling, improves expectoration (coughing), cleanses the mucous membrane, acts depressingly on bacteria and normalizes nasal breathing. However, since the very cause of the disease does not eliminate the saline solution for inhalation, it can be combined with medicinal herbs, for example, chamomile or eucalyptus leaf.
In addition to inhalation, saline solution perfectly replaces the expensive nasal drops based on sea water - “Aqua Maris” and “Humer”, etc. Although they additionally contain minerals, which is presented to manufacturers as an advantage, but with all this, the active substance is the same - salt .