Sometimes, especially in the middle of a severe cold, blowing your nose just isn't enough. In fact, there are times when your nose is just too blocked to blow at all - try all you like, all you get is a strange grumbling sound in your sinuses and a distinct risk of the increased pressure in your head forcing your brain out of your ears.

Enter the Nose Plunger.

About the size of a matchstick, with a small rubber cup on one end that fits snugly over the nostril, the Nose Plunger works to loosen the blockage so that it can be safely expelled into your handkerchief. Small enough to be discretely carried about one's person, it's also cheaper in the long run than scoffing packet after packet of menthol lozenges (and doesn't leave you stinking of eucalyptus either).
-- lostdog, Mar 07 2003

Nasal Irrigation http://www.philadel...icle.asp?ArtID=4509
The photo is fantastic. The article is pretty good too - "Suddenly I had water running out of the other nostril. It felt strange and wonderful. I started to laugh, but that was a mistake because I aspirated some of the water, which was now coming out my mouth, too. I was like a beautiful fountain..." [lostdog, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Mucous Extractor http://www.999suppl...am-products/002.htm
Should you feel the need [oneoffdave, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

New borns (sometimes) have fluid sucked out of their nose and throat with a soft suction tube called a 'mucus extractor'.

There is also a commercial product, that is basically a plastic bulb thst you squeeze to empty of air, then shove up the nose and release to draw out the mucus.

So nice idea but -1 'cos a solution is already baked.

I'll try and find links...
-- liamdelahunty, Mar 07 2003


I thought you can't blow your nose when you have a cold sometimes not only because there's stuff in there, but also because of swollen sinus tissue. Funny link, [lostdog].
-- snarfyguy, Mar 07 2003


And this technology thus avoids the sin of picking?
-- pluterday, Mar 07 2003


Picking is never a sin, pluter.

I almost posted an idea for nose balloons - like sick bags, only you attach them to your nose when you're about to sneeze. The balloon gets inflated in a fraction of a second (to great comic effect), but you tie them off pretty quickly and there's also something pretty nasty inside - thus lending it a snot-based centre of gravity.

Glad I kept that idea to myself.
-- lostdog, Mar 13 2003


Actually I quite like that one. Sneeze bags. Yes, it's growing on me. Much better than this plunger thing.
-- waugsqueke, Mar 13 2003


[marked–for–deletion] ha ha snot. C'mon, we've only done this topic a few hundred times already.
-- DrCurry, Mar 13 2003


C'mon dog, post the sneeze bag. Do it. You know you want to.
-- waugsqueke, Mar 13 2003


You're like an evil Jimminy Cricket, aren't you, waugs? An anti-conscience, whispering temptation into my ear...

That said, I might not be able to resist for long. Fishbones, here I come!
-- lostdog, Mar 13 2003


<bugs bunny>Ain't I a stinkah?</bugs bunny>
-- waugsqueke, Mar 13 2003


Idea posted. Fishbones awaited...
-- lostdog, Mar 13 2003


"Is that a booger?"

"No, it's not"
-- normzone, Nov 25 2003



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