Nasal stent

Expandable metal stents are a rapidly evolving medical technology. These devices are elegant metal cages which fit in into thin plastic tubes. Once in place, they are expanded into cylinders by means of a balloon inside. The balloon is removed, leaving the stent in place. Expandable stents were developed to hold open clog-prone heart vessels, but now are also used for colons and esophaguseses. Amazingly, these stents can remain in place for years, and apparently do not cause much irritation or infection.

I propose that a stent be developed for stuffy noses. When your nose is stuffy, the swollen, inflamed mucosa blocks the passage. Blowing removes mucus, but the tissue stays. Your options are drugs, which make you feel weird, or to suffer. A plastic coated guide tube could be run thru the stuffy nostril and a stent deployed. It would hold the nasal passage open. Secretions would be easily cleared, no longer hanging up in tight tissues. When the cold was over, the mucosa would shrink, and the stent would either be removed or swallowed with the mucus to pass harmlessly in stool. People with chronically blocked noses would just get to leave the stent in place indefinitely, as heart patients do with their stents. All peoples would breathe free!