When sick with a cold. Why is it you can blow your nose infinitely and your nose will still get near immediately clogged

Question

Does blowing your nose actually help with this at all? If I keep doing it, will it eventually stay open so I can breathe? Whats the purpose it just comes RIGHT back. I just want to sleep 🙁

Edit: What I learned is my nose has a boner which makes sense because I’m completely surrounded by sticky tissues.

I also learned that reddit got some pretty good otc medicine cold cures that are very helpful.

Overall thank you everyone.

In: 8189

Answer 1

Because it’s mostly due to swollen and dilated blood vessels that are pushing against surrounding tissue, therefore narrowing the passageway.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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Answer 4

Because it’s not full of snot or boogers, it’s inflamed and constricted.

Imagine your nostrils are a hosepipe. The flow through that hosepipe can be restricted in one of two ways:

* something inside the hose cause a blockage
* something outside the hose, squeezing on it.

When you have a cold your nostrils are being squeezed by the inflammation, so they are narrower than they would normally be. And no amount of blowing your nose will fix that, you have to wait to get better.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Because your nose isn’t plugged, its your sinuses that are swollen, you could blow your nose for 3 days strait and nothing is going to happen.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Like you’re 5: Imagine you’ve got a straw made of paper, and you’re trying to blow something out. Normally, when there is something stuck in there, it will come flying out the other end and resolve the blockage.

If, however, your paper straw gets wet, it may swell up which reduces the overall space available for air to travel through.

This is what happens when you have a cold.. rather than just blockage, there is also swelling which creates a smaller passage to breathe through, sometimes to the point where it is completely closed. In this case, the issue you want to address is inflammation rather than clearing things out. On top of this, constantly blowing your nose can further irritate it and worsen the inflammation.

edit: thank you your/you’re police for saving me from this embarrassment

Answer 9

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Answer 10

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