Inside the Little Plastic Castle

I used a neti pot for years, on the recommendation of an ENT. (Allergic rhinitis, generally swollen/inflamed stuff in the head and face area that's always made it hard for me to breathe through my nose, and the occasional reactive airway situation, usually as a lingering post-viral thing that can last for months.) Seemed to work pretty well. I saw a different ENT who said that neti pots were bad because they wash out helpful bacteria from your sinuses. (I wasn't aware that sinuses had helpful bacteria -- I know vaginas and colons do -- and I haven't verified this for myself.) She recommended that I switch to the saline nasal spray instead. I don't notice any taste from it other than slight ocean-water taste, which I like just fine. I'm not sure it actually works better than the neti pot did, but it's not appreciably worse.

I dropped and broke a couple of neti pots, but I tried the plastic bottles too and found it unpleasant somehow (maybe due to the tendency of the bottles for having air bubbles in them which went up my nose; not an issue with the pots, which I could pour gently and slowly.)

I continue not to be sure whether anything is true, with respect to ENT issues. (Perhaps also in general.)