Welcome to Brainstop from house Stuff works dot com where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, can nasal sprays be addictive? It's pretty scary to think that you're addicted to any drug, especially when available at a grocery store. Oprah Winfrey even devoted an entire show to people who can't live without their decongested spray. But fortunately it's safe to say that you're not really addicted if you think you're addicted to these sprays. Doctors and scientists
define addiction in different ways. Scientists call drugs addictive if they stimulate the pleasure center in your brain. Psychiatrists, on the other hand, say something is addictive if your need for it makes you do illegal, harmful things to get it.
Nasal sprays don't do either of these things. They have no effect on the brain, and while you may need your medicine to breathe freely, you probably aren't going to hold up a bank or skip work to go buy some nasal Sprayser drops are sold over the counter under brand names like Afrin, Sinex, Neo, sinephron, Alarrest, Durhamist, and sine Arrest. They contain a medicine that constricts the blood
vessels inside your nose. When you have a cold, the flu or allergies, these blood vessels becomes swollen and dilated. This stimulates the nasal membranes to produce large amounts of mucus, like stepping on a garden hose. Constricting the blood vessels reduces the blood flow to your nostrils. The swollen vessels shrink, and this helps drive things up. Unfortunately, your nose can become tolerant to decongested effects if you use it for
too long. Tolerance in general happens because your body launches a biological counter attack against the effects of the drug. One way it does this is by increasing cellular process and other activities that produce the opposite effect. In the case of decongestents, the body tries to dilate the nasal blood vessels despite the drug. This cancels out the decongestents effect, and the same squeeze of the bottle that brought you relief before no longer helps. You end up using more
and more to get rid of your stuff. He knows, and each time you sniff more decongestent, your body redoubles its efforts against the resulting constriction. This vicious cycle continues until you can't exist without a bottle of nasal spray in hand. If you don't use it, you're stuffed up and miserable. This is called rebound congestion. With lots of medicine on board, your nasal passages are dry and you feel healthy. With the medicine gun, the physiological effects that
your body has made rain unchecked. What happens is the exact opposite of the drug's effect. Your blood vessels swell up again, and your nasal lie fills up with mucus and your running nose returns. This is why the package labeling for these drugs tells you to limit their use to three days in a row. If you don't build up tolerance to the decongested effects, you won't get rebound congestion. And if you are tolerant, don't worry. It's not permanent.
If you quit cold Turkey, the changes that your body has made will eventually be reversed in a couple of weeks to a month. In the meantime, your doctor may be able to give you a prescription drug to safely combat your congestion. For more on this and thousands of other topics because that how stuff works dot Com. And don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog on the how stuff Works dot com home page. You can also follow brain stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff hs W