Note that oral phenylephrine has been deemed ineffective by the FDA, even though it’s common, so maybe use a different decongestant, specifically pseudoephedrine
Whenever I see claims about this, I always want to push back, because phenylephrine works quite well for me. Depending on how congested I am I might have to go slightly above the recommended dosing schedule, but usually I can take the amount recommended or less and it will keep my sinuses clear.
I understand it doesn’t work for everyone, so it makes me suspicious that the studies may be seeing issues like RCTs on SSRIs do, where the drugs work, but which drug works for which person is highly variable, so they seem ineffective in an RCT but seem highly effective in practice once the patient-drug matching process is done.
Whenever I see claims about this, I always want to push back, because phenylephrine works quite well for me. Depending on how congested I am I might have to go slightly above the recommended dosing schedule, but usually I can take the amount recommended or less and it will keep my sinuses clear.
I understand it doesn’t work for everyone, so it makes me suspicious that the studies may be seeing issues like RCTs on SSRIs do, where the drugs work, but which drug works for which person is highly variable, so they seem ineffective in an RCT but seem highly effective in practice once the patient-drug matching process is done.