Why did my nasal spray stop working?

Q: I decided to try a nasal spray to help ease the congestion I get from seasonal allergies. It worked great for the first few days, but now I feel more congested than before! What’s going on?

A: Over-the-counter nasal sprays can clear up congestion fast, but I don’t advise using them for more than three days in a row. Sprays that contain the decongestants oxymetazoline or phenylephrine

(like Afrin and Zicam) shrink blood vessels in the nasal passageways to ease congestion, but those vessels can become reliant on the compounds. After more than three days of use, the vessels will remain inflamed without the spray, worsening stuffiness and making it hard to stop using the product.

If you like using nasal sprays, no need to swear off of them—just opt for an over-the-counter version that contains steroids, like Flonase or Nasacort. Steroids reduce inflammation without shrinking blood vessels, so you can use them long-term. Plus, Scottish researchers found that daily use of these sprays reverses bloodvessel inflammation and rebound congestion caused by other sprays.

But if you’d prefer a natural congestion remedy, I can suggest a few. First, consider drinking two mugs of ginger tea daily. Researchers in the journal BMC Complementary Therapies found the strategy to be as effective at taming symptoms as medications like Claritin since compounds in the tea reduce the immunecell activity that triggers congestion.

Supplementing daily with 100 mg. of Pycnogenol, a French pine bark extract, can also help. Irish scientists say the compound works as well as medication to slow the production of histamine, the symptom-causing chemical released by immune cells.