Cheryl3

OK, after posting the message above I decided to email NeilMed from the link on their website and ask them. This morning I received a response from none other than the Dr. who invented the system, so I was pretty impressed! For anyone else who's interested, here's what he said about cleaning the system:

Good questions. I can give ideal answers but most customers like to be practical as they do not want to do a very long process of implementing sterilization. As a physician and user but not as a company policy I can give my opinion. After the use, empty the bottle, rinse cap, tube and bottle and and leave the cap on the bottle but allow the air to go in so it can dry out. Before the next use do gentle rinse, fill up with clean water, warm up in microwave and make the solution and use it. Therre is one more way of sterilizing and that is to place empty bottle with cap partially covering the bottle in microwave and warming for 10 to 30 seconds. At certain temperature, most bacteria would get killed. Nose and mouth are used to bacterial exposure and goal is to do as clean procedure as possible. It is imposible to do a totally sterile procedure and probably it is not needed. Chances are not zero but close to zero that there would be any adverse effects if one follows some common sense cleanliness principles in doing the nasal irrigation ( as long as one is not with any major immune deficiency type condition).

Please call me if any questions.

Thanks.

K. Mehta, MD

So apparently the microwave is sufficient to sterilize the system, even if you just microwave it with the solution in it right before you are going to rinse. Anyway, he sounds very friendly and seems like he is very willing to answer questions about nasal irrigation, so if anyone has any other questions, I highly recommend contacting him through the NeilMed website.

Happy rinsing, everyone!

Cheryl

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Cheryl