Night shift crud: sinus infections keep coming back, peptides worth it?

2026-09-30 3415 views 7 posts

Tugboat deckhand, 14 on/14 off, 6-6 watch. Since January: 5 sinus infections. Antibiotics work a week or two, then it returns. I already do saline rinses twice daily, humidifier, pillowcases every 2 days. Still stuffed up. ENT mentioned surgery. Not excited.

I keep seeing BPC-157, thymosin, etc. talked up for inflammation and immune stuff. Not asking for dosing. Did any of it actually break the cycle for you, or was it wasted money? If something helped, name it. If it was hype, say that too.

The watch schedule and recycled air aren't helping. I'm skeptical but open. Sleep is a mess.

Not a deckhand, but I’m on the road 3 weeks a month and my sinuses are a barometer. The only pattern that mattered: I tracked room humidity with a cheap hygrometer plus outdoor pressure swings.

My congestion flared way more on big pressure drops and recirced hotel/airport air than on dry cabin air alone. Do you notice it’s worse after crew change/travel days vs. mid-rotation? Also, are you sleeping flat or slightly propped? For me, a wedge pillow cut the morning post-nasal drip nonsense. Peptide hype?

I get the temptation, but I’d want a sinus-specific explanation first. Surgery sucks, but infection #6 also sucks.

Hi, brand-new here too (week one), so please take this with a grain of salt. Not a deckhand, but my brother works 14/14 on a dredge and his sinuses always flared around the second week.

The one thing he tracked was the AC vent right over his bunk and whether the filter had been changed that hitch. His worst mornings were after the vent blew straight at his face all night. Aiming it away and using a small travel humidifier helped some. I don’t know enough to touch peptides yet.

Do you notice it eases on your 14 off and builds back around day 5–7 on? That pattern might be more telling than any supplement.

Been here since the old GLP-1 threads, and I’ve seen this movie. Before peptides, one thing I’d track: sleep debt across the 14/14. I remember a thread last fall where a tug guy’s sinus crap clustered around day 8–10 of his hitch, not the shift itself.

His cabin humidity was dropping to like 20% overnight—cheap hygrometer changed the picture. Do you notice a pattern with days into the hitch vs. days off? That’s the question I’d answer before adding anything else.

Deckhand schedule is brutal on sinuses. One thing I’d track for two hitches: cabin humidity/temp plus how stuffed you are at wake, mid-watch, and bedtime.

My flares were almost always tied to the AC vent blasting dry air right at my bunk, plus a faintly musty mattress/pillow. I got a cheap hygrometer and a washable mattress encasement, and asked the chief to change the HVAC filter.

Not a cure, but I finally saw a pattern. Did ENT scope you or just suggest surgery? And do

Fellow daily weigher here. The data nerd in me would separate “hitch vs home” before blaming your immune system.

Does it ease up by day 4–5 off the boat? If yes, that points at the cabin/schedule, not just peptides.

I’d track sleep chunks (6–6 watch wrecks circadian), bunk fan/vent airflow, and whether flares follow certain rooms or AC vents. A cheap CO2 monitor can show if your berth air is just stale overnight.

Also note wind/barometric swings. Not medical advice, just pattern-finding.

If it follows you home too, that’s a different conversation.

Road warrior here, not a deckhand, but same recycled-air life. The only thing that ever correlated with my sinus flare-ups was hotel AC filters and those little airplane air vents.

I started noting filter grime and whether my room smelled like pool chlorine, and the bad weeks lined up. Weird follow-up: does your bunk or cabin have its own filter or shared vent?

If it’s shared, maybe ask maintenance when it was last swapped—not a cure, just one more environmental variable. I tried a peptide once for a shoulder tweak and it didn’t do anything noticeable for my nose, FWIW.