Long - ish post coming...

Synopsis:
Covid slime for 2 years. It is miserable and really life altering. It blows. Pun intended.

Something I just tried today that seems to really clear off the slime off my throat as a quick fix -

Neti pot - Mix 7 grams of sodium ascorbate into 1 cup of warm distilled water ( ~240g DISTILLED water) This makes around a 3% solution. Add in neti salt like normal per salt directions. Neti this. I didn't notice any extra discomfort - maybe a tiny bit. Cleared off all the snot pretty well. I will post an update in a few days to let you know how long the effect lasts. Apparently this creates local levels of vitamin C that would require an astronomical oral dose to achieve.

Reasoning - Sodium ascorbate is just a buffered salt of Vitamin C (pH more neutral) This makes it not burn like Vitamin C would. Vitamin C activates CFTR channels (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator) which increases the amount of liquid that cells put out to form the pericilliary liquid layer - the fluid that snot rides on as your ciliated cells try to move it out. My guess is that after infection CFTR is chronically somewhat downregulated, and/or the airway epithelium has reformed after infection to have too many mucous producing goblet cells and not enough ciliated cells (goblet cell hyperplasia).

Side note on this stuff - I used to have it worse in my lungs - now it is more in my upper chest/throat. Not really in my nose - but the neti still helps because it makes my epiglottis stay more "liquidy" and helps me swallow the covid slime or spit it up easier.

Also for those who have it rougher and want to try - I also had some success nebulizing sodium ascorbate - 1 gram in 10 grams (or 10 mL) of distilled water or isotonic (0.9%) nebulizer saline solution. This makes a 10% sodium ascorbate solution. Nebulize for 20-30 minutes or as long as it takes to feel the snot get "swallowable." Again this is Vitamin C straight to the airway epithelium including lungs. It isn't harsh to me and seems to clear things up well.

That's my 2 cents on this stuff and here is the link to amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/NutriBiotic-Ascorbate-Non-Acidic-Antioxidant-Supplement/dp/B000Z8YM7O/
Still in search of the ultimate cure - but anything to make life more normal helps - especially if it is pretty quick and easy to do.

-Mike