How I prevent sinus infections consistently

I have been getting several sinus infections each year for around 15 years now. If you suffer from chronic sinusitis you already know how miserable it can be. My infections would usually start with just a mild congestion, develop over time into a full sinus infection, my throat would often times get infected too and the only course of action I would have is a full course of antibiotics. Several  times in recent years it got so bad that I had to have several different types of antibiotics before I got rid of the infection in its entirety. Antibiotics have always done a number of my digestive system and I was determined to figure out a way out of this cycle.

Over the years I started to keep track of when my infections would start. I began entering them as recurring entries into my calendar with a one week reminder so I could anticipate them. Nothing seemed to help for years. But this year I took on a regimen that has been working well so far.

The trouble always starts around allergy season when I get a little stuffed up. My sinuses swell up. I get a bit of nasal backdrop and overnight I'm in hell. So the logical path was to prevent the allergic reaction first. For that I started taking Claritin but I quickly found that if I missed a single day or caught it a day late I would end up in the same trouble. I would then need some way to keep my sinuses draining. Claritin D helped but night times were not easy to deal with. That's when I started adding a night time spray. I use Afrin but I don't recommend using it more than a few nights as apparently it is very habit forming. I should stop here and say that I am NOT a doctor and have absolutely no medical background so none of what you read in this post is a recommendation, just my experience. Anyway, my symptoms were still not fully gone so I had to add DayQuil twice a day. I don't like NyQuil because it makes me drowsy and I don't feel like I am getting a restful sleep. Also, with all my symptoms gone I don't need to be knocked out like that. So this year my routine has been:

1. One Clartin D daily
2. Two doses of Dayquil, one in the morning one at night. (Two pills per dose)
3. Salt water gargle and/or neti pot
4. One spray of Afrin in each nostril before bed each night for three nights. I never exceed 3 nights for fear of the habit forming qualities. Look it up!
5. Frequent hot showers and hot sauna if I can get it
6. A mixed herbal rubbing oil that helps with breathing at night
7. I also make it a point to get a 1 hour workout each morning and get a good sweat going

I know this seems drastic, but using this routine I can beat an oncoming infection in 2-4 days. Otherwise I would be dealing with it for weeks and that would mean taking more antibiotics and tons more drugs to recover. If you have been dealing with severe chronic infections you know exactly what I mean. This is a relatively simple routine and I really believe all the components are necessary as I have tried tweaking it with less than optimal results. 

Why is my iPhone backup so large?

This is the very question that has been bugging me for a few months now. iCould keeps telling me that my backups have failed because I don't have enough space and I have literally turned off every back feature but still have this problem. My backup size is 3.8GB while it should technically be less than 1/2 GB. So what gives? Even the geniuses at the Apple Store were stumped. 

Well, I figured it out. I took a full backup of my iPhone using iTunes. Then I used iBackupBot to view my backup and see if could see what condition my condition was in. Well, if you do the same, you'll see the following file structure:

It's all exactly what it sounds like. 

• The System Files folder has your settings and databases and keychains and so on
• The User App Files folder has all the files for each of your apps
• The other three folders are not so obvious so I dug in and saw this in the "App Group Files" folder:

As you can see, I have sorted by size and for some reason Spark (my email application) is taking up 3.3 GB of space. As it turns out, the iCloud backup really backs up this whole folder and you have no choice over that even if you choose NOT to backup the Spark App.

Well so I dug in one more layer:

As you can clearly see, Spark has a pretty nasty cache file and also saves all your search history. That's pretty ridiculous given that this is taking up valuable iCloud storage. So I deleted the app and my backup went from 3.8GB to 338 MB!!! Victory!!!

If you're having issues with your iCloud file size being too large, Spark might be the culprit. If not, use iBackupBot to figure out what is the biggest space hog in the "App Group Files" folder and then delete the app. 

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