{"id":4810,"date":"2024-04-23T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T09:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4810"},"modified":"2024-04-23T09:27:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T09:27:08","slug":"is-nasal-spray-addictive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4810","title":{"rendered":"Is Nasal Spray Addictive?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Q: Nasal sprays help with my seasonal allergies, but I\u2019ve heard they can be addictive. Is that true? And what should I do if I think I\u2019m hooked?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an issue that has been joked about on social media<\/a> and on comedy shows like \u201cSaturday Night Live<\/a>\u201d and \u201cFamily Guy<\/a>\u201d: Once you start using certain nasal sprays, it\u2019s challenging to stop.<\/p>\n

Some active ingredients can indeed create extra stuffiness, causing \u201cthe compulsion to use it again and again for relief,\u201d said Dr. Edward McCoul, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Dr. McCoul said that an estimated 9 percent of people visiting E.N.T. physicians have what is called rhinitis medicamentosa, or \u201crebound congestion\u201d \u2014 meaning that their sinuses become even stuffier than they were before using the sprays.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The resulting repeated need for nasal spray isn\u2019t technically considered an addiction, said Dr. Jonathan Bernstein, an allergist and immunologist in Cincinnati. The spray would need to change a person\u2019s brain chemistry to fit the official definition.<\/p>\n

But the physical dependence is a real phenomenon. When the blood vessels in your nose get too accustomed to certain sprays, you can wind up feeling as though you couldn\u2019t breathe without them.<\/p>\n

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Q: Nasal sprays help with my seasonal allergies, but I\u2019ve heard they can be addictive. Is that true? And what should I do if I think I\u2019m hooked?It\u2019s an issue that has been joked about on social media and on comedy shows like \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d and \u201cFamily Guy\u201d: Once you start using certain nasal sprays, it\u2019s challenging to stop.Some active ingredients can indeed create extra stuffiness, causing \u201cthe compulsion to use it again and again for relief,\u201d said Dr. Edward McCoul, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.Dr. McCoul said that an estimated 9 percent of people visiting E.N.T. physicians have what is called rhinitis medicamentosa, or \u201crebound congestion\u201d \u2014 meaning that their sinuses become even stuffier than they were before using the sprays.The resulting repeated need for nasal spray isn\u2019t technically considered an addiction, said Dr. Jonathan Bernstein, an allergist and immunologist in Cincinnati. The spray would need to change a person\u2019s brain chemistry to fit the official definition.But the physical dependence is a real phenomenon. When the blood vessels in your nose get too accustomed to certain sprays, you can wind up feeling as though you couldn\u2019t breathe without them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4812,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4813,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions\/4813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}