Explain my stuffed nose pls

[ACLEVERNAME]

I have a standard cold. I get this cold 2-4 times a year depending on how I'm doing - usually once in the Spring and once in the Fall.

Always it begins in the nose (stuffed), works it's way to the throat (soar), and ends in the lungs (heavy cough).

What I'm wondering right now is how exactly a 'stuffed' nose actually works? How is it that I can lay down in bed with one or both of my nostrils completely clogged with absolutely no air-flow, and still feel a seemingly completely random shift in pressure from nostril to nostril? It isn't a gravity thing ( lower nostril may open first when laying on the side), and it has nothing to do with one airway working better than the other (they'll switch almost at random).
And no matter how much I blow my nose, the results are always a surprise.

Is there a snot marble rolling around my nasal cavity? Is it gravity, the air pressure, or the ether?

Explain my stuffed nose pls.

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[JMCx4]

It's the booger elves, moving your snot from one nostril to the other. What you perceive as a "completely random shift" is due to which crew is on duty and their collective mood. Medicine is largely a social science, you know.

 

[Stylizer1]

I have a standard cold. I get this cold 2-4 times a year depending on how I'm doing - usually once in the Spring and once in the Fall.

Always it begins in the nose (stuffed), works it's way to the throat (soar), and ends in the lungs (heavy cough).

What I'm wondering right now is how exactly a 'stuffed' nose actually works? How is it that I can lay down in bed with one or both of my nostrils completely clogged with absolutely no air-flow, and still feel a seemingly completely random shift in pressure from nostril to nostril? It isn't a gravity thing ( lower nostril may open first when laying on the side), and it has nothing to do with one airway working better than the other (they'll switch almost at random).
And no matter how much I blow my nose, the results are always a surprise.

Is there a snot marble rolling around my nasal cavity? Is it gravity, the air pressure, or the ether?

Explain my stuffed nose pls.

Ask mommy to put on vicks vapour rub before bed.

 

[PredsV82]

So what you are experiencing is what's known as the "nasal cycle". Normally one side of the nose will swell and the other will open up and then switch back and forth ever few hours. When you're not sick, you probably pay no attention to this(as Im typing this I notice my right nostril is the open one now) but when you have a cold the effect becomes more pronounced.

And if you do use the Vicks, dont use it for more than 2 days or you'll get addicted.

 

[JMCx4]

... And if you do use the Vicks, dont use it for more than 2 days or you'll get addicted.

Especially if you eat it, like my wife's maiden aunt did regularly.

 

[Stylizer1]

And if you do use the Vicks, dont use it for more than 2 days or you'll get addicted.