Getting revenge on cold and flu season

It’s upon us (cold and flu season, that is). On Tuesday night, I got run over by a nasty head cold and I am still slowly recovering. Since I’m nursing and don’t want to take medications or pass my cold to my kids, and I have an allergy to pseudoephedrine (the common decongestant in medications like Nyquil and NeoCitran- it makes my heart rate drop significantly), I felt pretty desperate to deal with it quickly.

Besides, it’s so difficult to function as a mama to young ones when your head is pounding, your nose running, and you’re struggling to breathe. So, I pulled out all my natural home remedies. We’re talking rummaging through my cupboards, my books, scouring google, and doing every natural thing I’ve ever known to do, even if it would help only minutely. Seriously, even minute improvements sounded exciting at that point!

Here’s what I did:

• drank oodles of liquids

• tons of fresh lemon juice (high in Vitamin C), and some fresh grapefruit juice this morning (again, Vitamin C)

• nearly drowned myself in steaming hot tea- because it was soothing, and because the steam and vapors helped to unclog my nose and give my throbbing sinuses a bit of a break

• Breathe Easy tea by Traditional Medicinals– same idea as above, but this tea is specifically made for the purpose of decongesting (I buy mine at the Walmart pharmacy, but most health food stores carry it, and some grocery stores in their natural section)

• ate as much garlic as a married woman should ever eat. Actually, I’ve heard that it works best if you can just swallow pieces of raw garlic, but I couldn’t bring myself to. Instead I put it in everything I ate, and even roasted an entire bulb of it to eat with goat’s cheese on toast (very yummy, I must say).

• a hot shower (very hot and steaming) with drops of eucalyptus essential oil in it (I put the plug in and let the water pool at my feet)

• hot compresses on my sinus and head to help relieve the sinus swelling

• took a B vitamin complex, as well as an E, C, and A complex

• 2 drops of Oil of Oregano under my tongue, 3-4 times a day

• Trimedica Silva Solution throat lozenges (they actually have homeopathic colloidal silver in them)

• today I made chicken noodle soup with a ton of veggies (especially leeks, onions, garlic) and homemade chicken broth

End result? It’s not gone, but I’m impressed with how much better I feel today than I did yesterday. I had some energy this morning, so I decided to make hay while the sun shone and ran around trying to put away laundry, tidy the bedrooms, clean the kitchen, make a real lunch and more bread and get prepared for dinner, etc. before I crashed. Now it’s the afternoon and I’m fading a bit, but such is life. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. 🙂