What is a cold receptor? What stimuli does it measure, and why would a chemical cause it to misfire?

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You are correct. The veins in the sinuses swell causing the feeling of a stuffy nose. Menthol and those vicks sinus smelly sticks cause the veins to contract, making room for more airflow to move through. I recently remembered the vicks sticks my grandmother used when I was a kid and looked it up to see how they worked since you don't actually inhale any fluid/medication.

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>It actually doesn’t open the sinuses, It gives the feeling that your sinuses are opening from a cooling effect

What about garlic?

This is wrong. Try it yourself. Fully blocked nose. Eat a teaspoon or horseradish, wasabi, whatever. You will be able to suddenly breathe through your running nose for 20 minutes.

Why on earth wouldn‘t the irritants in horseradish not be active chemicals either? There isn‘t some kind of magical knowledge the body has

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It makes my nose run. Maybe it just clears the sinuses that way?

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Consrictors cause your airway to actually open up but they usually have fast rebound effects. Dilators will cause mucus to run which may clear out your sinuses, but its likely psychological as your sinuses would technically be more clogged.

If you get too strong of a dose, sure you might close the sinus spinxter (?) muscle on instinct.

But that "cool" effect of guns, toothpastes etc is just triggering the receptors with false signals.

When time stops it stops in a reference frame. There is no motion in that reference frame but the frame can still move through spacetime relative to other reference frames. Think of light as a permanently frozen object. It pops into existence and does not change. It can still move through spacetime. The concept of instantaneousness does not apply to frozen objects. They don't experience time ever.

Similar to motion, a reference frame where time stopped can spin. That's how the singularity in a black hole behaves. Time is stopped in it but it still spins. When matter falls into the black hole angular moment adds up so it can spin up or spin down while still experiencing no time (remaining frozen).

Note that light frequency is not a movement in addition to the movement of light along geodesic lines. A frozen object can have internal frequency, spin, and momentum.

Are you sure menthol doesn't cause the sinuses to reflexively contract? Actually wondering.

I mean that's the physical reason that's happening (or menthol etc is tricking them), but we call them cold recepting because relative to base temperature, they (the neurons) fire more when it's colder compared to heat sensing which fire more with heat (or spicy like capsaicin and some other compounds). I'm actually unsure (fairly confident there is) if there is multiple subtypes of each.

edit: just noticed the other reply was to yourself, sorry!

Thanks for the study. Extremely interesting and partially worrying as I've considered seeing someone about my turbinates, although I have heard about empty nose syndrome before.

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This paper appears to line up with the other comments about menthol that you dismissed. Where the actions provokes a response and blood flow making people more aware of airflow and acting as a cooling effect on the nasal passages. But not doing anything to ease congestion (physically), instead helping with the patient side of the equation by stimulating nerves.

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There's a lot of wrong information in this thread, and I wonder if some of it is due to confusion about what sinuses are. They are not your nostrils: when you have a stuffy nose that's, well, your nose. If you have sinus issues, that's a separate thing; they are basically hollow spaces in your facial bones. They are lined with epithelium which can become swollen, and they can fill with fluid - these are sinus problems, specifically.

I know nothing about whether any of these substances affects sinuses.

However, I do know that they do affect your nasal passages, so the top-voted comment which says they don't is wrong (even though it's talking about sinuses as well as the nose). Menthol in particular is vasoactive and, in the nose, it acts as a vasoconstrictor. (Presumably the cold receptors are acting as they would if they detected actual cold - but this is complicated. Read more here) Your stuffy nose is primarily the result of your nasal lining swelling. With the blood vessels constricted, the swelling decreases and more air can pass through your nose, so you can breathe more easily. This is why menthol is an active ingredient in some decongestants.