My wife uses Emcur nasal irrigation salts and finds the technique
brings great relief. They are expensive for what they appear to
contain (salt and bicarb). (10 quid a box). What would be the correct
proportions of ingredients to make a home brewed alternative? Are
there any caveats?
Analytical data of the mineral salt mix: Ions in g/kg: Sodium 290,
Potassium 6, Bicarbonate 475, Chloride 190, Sulphate 9.
http://www.ukmi.nhs.uk/NewMaterial/html/docs/03120102.pdf says they're
NACL on a sachet |
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
11 Oct 2003 13:25 PDT
trellis...
What strikes me as odd is that, while the Emcur ingredients are
touted as providing an especially healthy balance of component
ingredients (as though carefully formulated to do so), the
ingredients simply come from a natural source - the thermal
springs of Ems in Germany. The irony of this is heightened by
the fact that they instruct you to:
"...empty one sachet of the EmcurŽ Nasal Cleansing Salt into the
EmcurŽ Nasal Douche, add lukewarm tap water, screw the cap on
and mix the solution."
http://www.emcur.co.uk/salt.asp
Since tapwater contains chlorine and/or chloramine additives,
this would seem to contradict their concern for a careful
balance of healthy components.
Nasal douching is an ancient practice of yoga, called Jala
Neti, and calls for irrigation of the nasal passages using
natural sea salt. The recommendations of the Yoga Online site:
"You have to put the right amount of salt in the water. This
is very important. The water should taste salty, but not
overly so. Too little or too much salt is extremely
uncomfortable and possibly even dangerous (it can sometimes
cause nose bleeds). Experiment for yourself, and you'll soon
know exactly what is the right amount of salt for your Neti
Pot. As a rough guideline, 1 teaspoon for one liter of water
is about right.
The water temperature has to be comfortable (body temperature,
or a little cooler). That's easy to check out."
http://indigo.ie/~cmouze/yoga_online/jalaneti.htm
The site also notes the existence of the Emcur salts, if
you're concerned about getting the mixture right, while
noting the additional expense.
You already have the Emcur device, which precludes the need
for a Neti Pot. If you used warm distilled or reverse-osmosis
processed water, in conjunction with a good quality sea salt,
this would seem as healthy or more healthy than using the
Emcur salts with tap water. And your wife already has a sense
of the degree of salinity in the Emcur salts, which would make
it easier for her to assess the salinity in a sea salt solution.
Has your wife ever considered this alternative?
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 03:07 PDT
Thank you for the information sublime. A very good point abouut the
muck in typical tap water. Articles do not mention the barcarb aspect
of the emcur formulation. Could this be to counteract the chlorine and
other stuff? Hopefully the chemists in our midst can explain for the
unscientific among us.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 14:15 PDT
trellis...
According to this page on the snoring support board on the
Australian Snoring.com site, the sodium bicarbonate is added
in an amount equal to the salt in order to reduce the stinging
sensation produced by the salt:
http://www.snoring.com.au/cgi-bin/board/board.cgi?action=display&num=1181
The formula given above calls for 1 teaspoon each, of salt and
bicarbonate, per 500ml of water, which is twice as strong as the
1 teaspoon of salt per liter suggested in the Yoga Online quote
in my previous post. But, as I said, your wife could determine
a more exact quantity by her familiarity with the Emcur formula.
Another reference which supports the idea that the bicarbonate is
a 'buffering' agent is the Sinucleanse Solution, sold on the
Neutraceutic website for $5.95 for 40 packets, or $9.95 for 100
packets. The only ingredients listed are Sodium Chloride and
Sodium Bicarbonate, and it is described as a:
"Preservative-free, buffered saline solution":
http://www.nutraceutic.com/Products/Yoga/Neti/sinucleanse.htm
This 'buffering' makes the solution less offensive to sensitive
mucosal tissues, just as eye drops are buffered to reduce the
irritation to the eye.
If the homemade solution or the Sinucleanse packets offer
satisfactory alternatives to the Emcur products, I will be
happy to post what I've provided as an official answer.
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 15:13 PDT
sublime, looks like it's almost ready for closing, and to get maximum
stars and a tip I'd really like to confirm quantities from the Ions
g/Kg (Sodium 290,
Potassium 6, Bicarbonate 475, Chloride 190, Sulphate 9) information.
Surely one of your fellow scientific researchers can do a quick calc?
Some of the raw figures are below but my chemistry is a bit like the
old grey mare ;-)
NaCl NaHCO3
The molecular weight of sodium bicarbonate is 84. The molecular weight
of the carbonate ion is 60 (http://www.coloradokoi.com/alkalini.htm)
sodium chloride (NaCl). The atomic weight of sodium, given in the
periodic table, is 23 gram, and of chlorine is 35.5 gram. The
molecular weight of sodium chloride is, therefore, Mw = 23 + 35.5 =
58.5 gram. (http://urila.tripod.com/mole.htm)
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 15:33 PDT
sublime: I used an excel sheet to do a quick calc with what I guess
might be the way to work it out. seems to be approximately correct. So
does this mean 5.3 grams of salt and 7.8 grams of bicarb per litre?
na 290 23 1 13.13899792 302.1969522
cl 190 35.5 1 5.352112676 190
hco3 475 61 1 7.786885246 475
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 15:56 PDT
trellis...
I'm a little lost on the 'ions in g/kg', and how that
correlates to atomic weight or molar concentration, or
1 teaspoon/liter. I couldn't even find out how many grams
of salt are in a teaspoon, since grams are a measure of
weight and teaspoons are a measure of liquid.
I'll ask around, but when I did a Google search for
"ions in g/kg":
://www.google.com/search?q=%22ions+in+g%2Fkg%22
...the only sites that came up were for Emcur.
sublime1-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
12 Oct 2003 16:31 PDT
trellis...
You said:
sublime: I used an excel sheet to do a quick calc with what I guess
might be the way to work it out. seems to be approximately correct. So
does this mean 5.3 grams of salt and 7.8 grams of bicarb per litre?
na 290 23 1 13.13899792 302.1969522
cl 190 35.5 1 5.352112676 190
hco3 475 61 1 7.786885246 475
Assuming your math to be correct, I would include the weight of the
sodium with the weight of the chloride, making it 18.5 grams of
salt and 7.8 grams of bicarb. It seems like a reasonable mix,
but I still think your wife will be able to sense the appropriate
mixture. The nose knows!... : )
1 ounce = 28.35 grams
://www.google.com/search?q=1+ounce+in+grams
...but I'm still not sure how many grams/ounces of salt or bicarb
will fit in a teaspoon, for comparison. Since bicarb is not as
dense as salt, I expect that the ratio you've calculated is about
right, and a teaspoon of bicarb would weigh, in grams/ounces, less
than half of what a teaspoon of salt would weigh.
sublime1
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
13 Oct 2003 04:14 PDT
Ah yes, include the sodium. doh, so that means 13 sodium over 2
(there's one in each compound) would give 5.3+6.5 of salt (12grams)
and 7.8+6.5 of bicarb (14.3grams)
15 grams of salt = 1 tbsp = 3 tsp (according to
http://www.tbsofs.org/Recipes/Volume.asp). that's a lot more than 1
tsp. Hmm, looks like we do need some scientific input...
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
13 Oct 2003 04:24 PDT
further delving found this
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/dosing.html
about fish tanks, where it says that 1/4 tsp of sodium barcarb = 1.3g.
so 1 tsp=5.2g and 1 tbsp = 15.6g. It also give some info about
concentrations but tantalisingly doesn't give the ion conversion...
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
13 Oct 2003 22:19 PDT
trellis...
You said:
"It also give some info about concentrations but tantalisingly
doesn't give the ion conversion..."
Yep. It occurs to me that Emcur only included such 'scientific'
analysis to legitimize their essentially natural product. As I
noted earlier, searches for ion concentrations such as they
provided turned up *only* Emcur's site. Seems like we're
beating a dead horse. All the conversions you have come up
with seem to confirm the legitimacy of using between 1 and 2
teaspoons of both salt and bicarb per liter, and using equal
amounts of both, as noted much earlier, on the yoga site and
the snoring site.
If you can accept this as a legitimate answer, I'd be happy
to post it in the Answer Box, but if it isn't a 5-star answer,
in your estimation, I will defer, and allow you to pursue the
question with other researchers. Given that I've already spent
a couple of hours on this question, I'd say you've gotten your
money's worth, when you consider the pricing guidelines:
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html
Best regards...
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
trellis-ga
on
14 Oct 2003 13:22 PDT
sublime: please go ahead and close the question. i'll give up on the
ion thing and thus a precise answer. The emcur dose is 2.5gper250ml
that's 10g per litre and based on the conversion quantities i
unearthed below, that's about 1 teaspoon of each per litre with the
barcarb having a slightly bigger share. thanks for yor help.
|
trellis...
Thank you. I will reproduce below the salient points of the answer.
What strikes me as odd is that, while the Emcur ingredients are
touted as providing an especially healthy balance of component
ingredients (as though carefully formulated to do so), the
ingredients simply come from a natural source - the thermal
springs of Ems in Germany. The irony of this is heightened by
the fact that they instruct you to:
"...empty one sachet of the EmcurŽ Nasal Cleansing Salt into the
EmcurŽ Nasal Douche, add lukewarm tap water, screw the cap on
and mix the solution."
http://www.emcur.co.uk/salt.asp
Since tapwater contains chlorine and/or chloramine additives,
this would seem to contradict their concern for a careful
balance of healthy components.
Nasal douching is an ancient practice of yoga, called Jala
Neti, and calls for irrigation of the nasal passages using
natural sea salt. The recommendations of the Yoga Online site:
"You have to put the right amount of salt in the water. This
is very important. The water should taste salty, but not
overly so. Too little or too much salt is extremely
uncomfortable and possibly even dangerous (it can sometimes
cause nose bleeds). Experiment for yourself, and you'll soon
know exactly what is the right amount of salt for your Neti
Pot. As a rough guideline, 1 teaspoon for one liter of water
is about right.
The water temperature has to be comfortable (body temperature,
or a little cooler). That's easy to check out."
http://indigo.ie/~cmouze/yoga_online/jalaneti.htm
The site also notes the existence of the Emcur salts, if
you're concerned about getting the mixture right, while
noting the additional expense.
You already have the Emcur device, which precludes the need
for a Neti Pot. If you used warm distilled or reverse-osmosis
processed water, in conjunction with a good quality sea salt,
this would seem as healthy or more healthy than using the
Emcur salts with tap water. And your wife already has a sense
of the degree of salinity in the Emcur salts, which would make
it easier for her to assess the salinity in a sea salt solution.
According to this page on the snoring support board on the
Australian Snoring.com site, the sodium bicarbonate is added
in an amount equal to the salt in order to reduce the stinging
sensation produced by the salt:
http://www.snoring.com.au/cgi-bin/board/board.cgi?action=display&num=1181
The formula given above calls for 1 teaspoon each, of salt and
bicarbonate, per 500ml of water, which is twice as strong as the
1 teaspoon of salt per liter suggested in the Yoga Online quote
cited previously. But, as I said, your wife could determine
a more exact quantity by her familiarity with the Emcur formula.
Another reference which supports the idea that the bicarbonate is
a 'buffering' agent is the Sinucleanse Solution, sold on the
Neutraceutic website for $5.95 for 40 packets, or $9.95 for 100
packets. The only ingredients listed are Sodium Chloride and
Sodium Bicarbonate, and it is described as a:
"Preservative-free, buffered saline solution":
http://www.nutraceutic.com/Products/Yoga/Neti/sinucleanse.htm
This 'buffering' makes the solution less offensive to sensitive
mucosal tissues, just as eye drops are buffered to reduce the
irritation to the eye.
All the conversions we've come up with seem to confirm the
legitimacy of using between 1 and 2 teaspoons of both salt
and bicarb per liter, and using equal amounts of both, as
noted previously, on the yoga site and the snoring site.
Best regards...
sublime1-ga
Searches done, via Google:
nasal yoga
://www.google.com/search?q=nasal+yoga
"jala neti" bicarbonate
://www.google.com/search?q=%22jala+neti%22+bicarbonate
"ions in g/kg"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22ions+in+g%2Fkg%22 |
,
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)