Last winter, Xiaowen often had nosebleeds. Her parents were afraid of what’s bad problems. They were nervous and took her to the hospital for examination. The doctor asked the medical history in detail and checked her nose. She found that Xiaowen had no other problems except some dry scabs and blood scabs in her nose. It was neither [rhinitis] nor [excessive internal heat].
The doctor asked their husband and wife if they often felt dry throat and nose recently. Don’t ask don’t feel, ask it seems that is really the case. Xiaowen’s parents nodded and admitted.
The doctor told them that the problem was that the nasal cavity was too dry, which may be caused by dry air. Just pay attention to moisturizing.
Is it as simple as that? Dr. Clove will introduce why he said so.
What else can the nose do besides venting and smelling?
The nose can not only breathe and smell the taste, but also purify, clean, heat and humidify the inhaled air as the first pass of the respiratory system, just like a fully automatic humidifier with air cleaning function.
1. Humidification
The mucous membrane in the nose continuously secretes liquid to regulate the humidity of the air inhaled into the nasal cavity. Every 24 hours, about 1 liter of liquid is secreted, which well maintains the moisture in the nasal cavity and throat and the healthy state of the respiratory system.
When inhaling too much dry air, the liquid secreted by nasal mucosa is not enough, so we will feel that the nasal cavity is dry. The secretion of the nose will form dry scabs, that is, nasal excrement, which irritates the mucosa and makes people feel itchy and can’t help but want to dig.
In addition, dry air will reduce the elasticity of nasal mucosa and make blood vessels easy to rupture, so the nose is easy to bleed, especially for children.
Not only that, dry scabs can also block the nasal cavity, affecting the air in and out, we will feel nasal congestion. If you breathe with your mouth when the nasal cavity is blocked, without humidification, heating and purification of the nasal cavity, your throat will also feel dry. Children will also have this kind of discomfort, but sometimes they can only cough or clear their throat without understanding expression.
2. Cleaning function
In addition to humidification, nasal cavity also has a very important function, that is, filtering and cleaning, which is mainly completed by cilia on the mucosal surface. However, when the air is too dry, cilia will not move. If the time is longer, cilia will even necrosis and fall off, and secretions, dust and germs in nasal cavity will begin to accumulate.
At this time, the disease resistance of nasal mucosa will be greatly reduced, and various respiratory tract bacteria will have the opportunity. They invade the human body to grow and reproduce, and we may suffer from colds, influenza, pharyngolaryngitis and other respiratory diseases.
The mucous membrane in the nasal cavity of infants is relatively tender, with abundant blood vessels and little or no nasal hair. It is more affected by dry cold air and is more likely to be infected and sick.
How much moisture in the air can make people comfortable?
Dry air will bring a lot of discomfort to people. The question arises, how to judge whether the air is dry? By feeling? Or with the above symptoms? Neither, the humidity or dryness of the air can be expressed by [relative humidity], and can be measured by [temperature and humidity meter] in normal life.
The smaller the relative humidity value, the drier the air. The higher the relative humidity value, the wetter the air. For ordinary people, considering the amount of mucus secreted by the nose itself, the relative humidity that can make the human body feel comfortable is 45% ~ 65%.
How maintains ideal humidity?
1. Let the human body humidify independently
When the day is dry, you should drink a small amount of water frequently for many times and use some drugs to moisten the nasal cavity so that the nasal mucosa can secrete enough mucus.
Step 2 Make the environment wetter
There are two solutions:
(1) When the weather is hot, you can try to sprinkle water in the room or put more water in pots or barrels. However, considering that mosquitoes are easy to breed and children should be prevented from playing with water, we prefer to use professional humidifiers.
(2) It is convenient and convenient to configure a household humidifier. However, there are various humidifiers on the market now, and the quality and safety issues need to be considered in particular. It is suggested to consider the following issues when purchasing:
1) Humidification effect: Some humidifiers form some small water droplets locally, and the humidification effect in the distance is not good. It is recommended to choose a humidifier that can humidify the whole room evenly.
2) Sterilization effect: Long-term use may lead to bacteria breeding. Not long ago, South Korean media also broke a news report about the poisoning of many people caused by fungicides added to humidifiers, so attention should be paid to this aspect. It is recommended to choose humidifiers with non-chemical sterilization function.
3) Work noise: Usually the humidifier needs to be turned on all night. Noise will more or less affect the sleep of family members. It is suggested that this factor should also be properly considered when purchasing.
In addition, it is suggested that the home can be equipped with a temperature and humidity meter, which can adjust the humidifier switch at any time according to the humidity. Of course, some humidifiers will also have automatic display, which is more convenient.
Therefore, we recommend that when seasons alternate, when heating equipment such as air conditioners are especially dry in winter, and when family members are prone to colds, nosebleeds and other symptoms, they should pay attention to the problem of indoor humidity.