It all started with a blocked nose

When struggling with rhinosinusitis, Raivo Tamsalu, one of the creators of Capster, had an idea to try rinsing his nose. Since there were no suitable products available at the pharmacy, he had to make one himself.

The prototype of Capster was, in fact, a strawberry jam bottle cap, screwed onto a water bottle. Since learning that over 700 million people around the world suffer from chronic rhinosinusitis Raivo partnered up with Birk Põldme and Marc Teiv to create a real product that could help all those people.

Having researched more specifically, they found that different devices for nasal rinsing do exist but none of them seemed very easy to use and some of them weren’t effective due to lack of sufficient pressure.

Hours upon hours were spent to come up with a design that overcomes all these problems. There are valves inside Capster that prevent contaminated fluid from flowing back into the bottle and a separate air channel, which does not allow a vacuum to develop in the bottle. Capster is small enough to fit into a pocket but at the same time, allows nasal rinsing with a solution of 500 ml in a very comfortable position, while also being compatible with any conventional standard-sized plastic bottle.