A while back, I received a gratis bottle of Afrin's No-Drip Original Formula Nasal Spray in order to try and review.  The product promised instant, twelve hour relief in a formula that wouldn't drip down the back of your throat. 

When it comes to nasal sprays, there's a lot of misinformation out there.  A lot of it is really scary, too.  I've heard tales of people becoming addicted to it, people dying from using it, and many other horrifying tales of woe.  Thankfully, most of them are NOT true.  A few, like the addiction, isn't really an addiction to the medicine, but a mental thing.  The way Afrin works is by causing blood vessels in your nose to constrict.  If you use it too much, or if you're just unlucky, they will swell even more once it wears off.  This is what's called rebound congestion.  When people get this, they squirt some more in there, and repeat the cycle.  This is where a lot of the addiction complaints come from. However, using the product like this is 100% completely against the manufacturer's instructions.  Don't do this.  Seriously.  The package even warns you that this will happen if you do. 

It never fails that I get at least one nasty case of nasal congestion during the winter months.  When I do, I'm the world's biggest whiny baby.  A very grumpy whiny baby.  Very, very grumpy.  When I can't breath, I'll try just about anything to clear it up.  Usually I swear by my neti pot, running some unusual concoction through it.  If some of those mixtures haven't killed me, I doubt using a nasal spray will.  However, I did take the time to read the packaging:  two to three squirts every ten to twelve hours, and no more than twice a day.  The package sung with glorious promises of up to twelve hours of relief. 

I couldn't tell you how long the relief lasted, but the headache it gave me outlasted it.  That puppy was almost instantaneous, too.  It was like "squirt, squirt, boom."  It felt like one of the worst cases of brain-freeze I've ever experienced, and it took a long time to go away.  I hoped that maybe this was a (un)happy little coincidence, but no.  I had this side effect every time I used the medicine.  According the some research, this is a common complaint, and headache is listed as one of its common side-effect.   Most of the time I can ignore side-effects, but this one was a deal breaker.  It does help a lot with nasal congestion.  I never saw anything near the twelve hours promised, but to be fair, I only used it three times.  I'm estimating I had about fours hours before my nose was stopped back up.  If I didn't experience such a sensitivity to it, those three or four hours would definitely be worth it.  Perhaps someone with a stronger constitution than I will find Afrin to be a great product.  For me, it's not worth the pain.