October 2024

Treating a nasal infection with ClO2

This is a follow-up on my April 2024 post about Treating a nasal infection with iodine and the 2022 article on Homemade nasal rinses and sprays. Diluted Povidone Iodine is a good spray or nasal rinse and Iodine fumes clear the nose too but there are many options. Steve Kirsch mentioned recently on his show that he switched from Xclear nasal spray to ClO₂ nasal spray. Chlorine Dioxide is indeed an interesting alternative. It's less aggressive than iodine and therefore less irritating for the nose. There is even a commercial product known as "Snoot! Awesome Nasal Cleanser". So I decided to try this. I did not buy the Snoot kit but but simply mixed my own:

I used 25% NaClO₂ + 4% HCl, 5 drops in 30ml of previously boiled water (+a bit of table salt)
procedure:
1. bring water to a rolling boil in order to sterilize it, let it cool down
2. mix 5 drops of Sodium Chlorite solution and 5 drops of Hydrochloric Acid solution in the corner of a clean glass
3. wait 30sec for the mixture to turn yellow-brown
4. add 30ml of the sterilized water
5. add a bit of table salt (about 0.25g)
6. fill into a nasal spray bottle
7. optional (increases efficiency): In a separate spray bottle add 1ml of 99% DMSO to 20ml of previously boiled water. You could add the DMSO directly to the ClO2 solution if you plan to use all of it within the next few hours. DMSO reacts very slowly with ClO2 and deactivates it. It is therefore better to mix them only inside the nose by using two separate bottles. DMSO has itself antimicrobial properties but we use it primarily to allow the ClO2 to penetrate the skin a bit.

If I have been around people all day and I come home with a slightly stuffy nose then I clean my nose with this homemade ClO₂ nasal spray. It works well.

Instead of a 4% HCl solution you could also use a 50% Citric Acid solution. HCl is a gas dissolved in water and it evaporates over time especially if stored in plastic bottles. Citric Acid is a salt dissolved in water and it has better long-term stability.

The above recipe makes a slightly acidic nasal spray. This is because the acid activator to make ClO₂ is always overdosed. All the ClO₂ kits overdose on acid to ensure there is no NaClO₂ remaining after the chemical reaction. This makes the final solution acidic. It is possible to "distill" just the ClO₂ out. This gives a much higher quality ClO₂ solution. The process is called "making CDS". It's a good idea to make first CDS (a very pure ClO₂ solution) when preparing this nasal spray especially when you plan to use also a 5% DMSO spray.

Diluted Iodine Nasal Spray and Chlorine Dioxide Nasal Spray

Diluted Iodine Nasal Spray (left) and Chlorine Dioxide Nasal Spray (right): the Chlorine Dioxide Nasal Spray is more gentile but as effective against corona viruses

Nasa called ClO₂ "A Univeral Antidote". In the 1980s it was known as "Alcide" and it was a newly discovered substance with a variety of potential applications:

Pharmacodynamics of alcide, a new antimicrobial compound,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6745537/

Nasa Spinoff magazine, 1988, page 118: A Univeral Antidote,
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/back_issues_archives/1988.pdf

Treating a nasal infection with ClO2

References