I think this has been covered in this forum before, using sesame seed
oil to treat dry nasal passages. But I just found this and thought I'd
post it for those like me who are suffering from the dry/burnout nasal
passages that go hand-in-hand with the kind of brutally cold winters
we have here and especially if you are stuck in a building/house that
is heated with natural gas heat with no humidification.

I'm going out to buy some organic sesame seed oil at a health food
store NOW. I'll report back on how it works for me - or not.

iJah

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from the site: http://www.mercola.com/2002/jan/23/nasal_passages.htm

During the winter in cold climates the air is usually quite dry, and
this results in many people having dry nasal passages leading to
itching, burning, and mucus crusts forming.

These complaints increase when the humidity is low in the winter
months from December to May in the northern part of the world and
during long journeys by airplane.

The traditional medical treatment is a spray of isotonic sodium
chloride, or saline, solution. A new study compared saline with sesame
oil.

Swedish researchers used the sesame oil spray with great benefits on
nasal dryness, stuffiness and crusts apparent within 4 days. After 14
days of treatment 80% of the subjects were improved. The sesame oil
was far superior to the saline spray which only worked in 30% of the
subjects.

Archives of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery November 2001
127:1353-1356

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Dr. Mercola's Comment:

The sesame oil in this study was pharmaceutical grade and its bottle
had a dosage pump. As long as you are not allergic to sesame it is
likely that a high quality organic sesame oil would also work.

It might not hurt to wipe a small drop of sesame oil inside the nose,
but it probably needs to get higher up, and spraying with something
other than a dosage pump could result in getting oil into your lungs.

However, even though it would be wise to avoid getting the sesame oil
in your lungs, the authors showed that the ciliary function of the
lungs were not changed after exposure to the sesame oil and it is
likely the cilia in the lining of the lung would be able to remove the
excess oil.

If you are allergic to sesame oil you should likely avoid this
approach, however, in the study those allergic to sesame seemed to
tolerate the small doses used, which is likely related to the fact
that a pure pharmaceutical grade sesame oil was used which was free of
antigenic proteins.

It is possible that the sesame oil works but it seems to inhibit the
production locally of arachidonic acid which is a fat that lead to the
formation of many of the proinflammatory prostaglandins.

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