Question: This is for an ENT specialist. I'm a 70 year old male in good health. I've had a good-sized deviated septum for about 45 years. Because the larger nostril closes every night when I lay down (is that a swollen turbinate), I turned to Afrin for many years--too many. About 2.5years ago,I began to have chronic and fairly severe postnasal drip. My ENT Dr at Kaiser said it was likely due to damaged nasal tissue, that may or may not heal. He recommended flonase. That did not help the drip. A month ago I decided once and for all to stop using Afrin, and the reasons for using Afrin came back--sleeping with my mouth open most of the night is just about impossible. I can only make it if I tilt my head a certain way that opens up a little my larger nostril--my smaller one stays open much of the night til eventually closing as well but it still amounts to a lot of wake time during the night--which so happens to be the worst time for the nasal drip as well. So I have a night time breathing problem and a nasal drip problem. I'm hoping that staying off the Afrin will down the road restore my nasal tissue--is that even realistic? I don't want to have this awful nasal drip the rest of my life. I realize the septum surgery would open my smaller nostril to enable better breathing; that would likely help at night. So, my two--related--questions are 1) is there anything other than Afrin that will keep my nasal passages clear at night? 2) is there anything that can reduce or eliminate the nasal drip?