Thursday 4 July 2013

Wrestling the 'flu

PS.  I am being wrestled flat on the bed by a python of the 'flu!  It has me by the neck, chest and body, leaving me gasping for breath as I cough out an ongoing hacking tune!  I think my safeguards against Winter ills is only effective, IF I remember to take them!  Note to self for future.  Take immune boosters regularly!
Going to the doctors is a question of stubborness born of the fact is has been close on 6 years since presenting myself to one, being a pharma-phobe (medicinal drugs), so I shall press on with bed rest, Indian ayurvedic remedies and a home-made cough syrup which is as yummy as it is particularly effective against this invading cough monster!

A potted cyclamen gifted to me a year ago, finds a shady home in the garden.
I wrote this above as an addendum to my last post, stricken with a nasty bout of the dreaded 'lergy!  It really took it out of me, and I found that I had to pull out all the stops with home remedies to try to get myself back on my feet.  I began to worry, after 4 days flat on my back, whether I shouldn't do what most people would do, and trundle off to the doctor for some BIG GUN medication.  Real drugs.  Legal ones.


But then day 5 swung round and I managed to haul myself out of bed, and experienced the euphoric high of someone who's been incarcerated in prison and been finally set free!  I felt like I could take on the world again and so I eagerly made plans to return to work the next day.  Oops, should have been more cautious and taken another day to recover as I hit the bottom energy-wise, round about lunch time the first day back.  I worried again, that I should have taken "REAL" pharmaceutical drugs.  But looking around me, I began to see a pattern.  Many people sick with the flu (and other such nasties that come with the territory of winter), many having been on 1 or even 2 doses of antibiotics.  Viral chest infections.  Bronchitis.  Even, pneumonia.
Daffodils to cheer up a Sick House
I didn't get an "official" diagnosis, but I'd say, from experience, that I had flu, exacerbated by a dose of sinusitus (a first for me - now I am more sympathetic to what my son has experienced on several past occasions .  It doesn't sound so exciting when people ask what you were suffering from - "Uh, the flu, I guess".   "You guess?"  No exotic sounding diagnosis to widen their eyes and elicit tongue-clucking sympathetic sounds.

Ah well, that's the way of the Self-Healing, Self-Diagnosing Home Do-It-Your-Selfer.  But I am still standing, it did take me another week (2 in total) to really shake all the symptoms, but I got there.  And it took no longer than those with real diagnoses and medication.  Makes you think, huh?  
A few daisies brighten up a green garden
I don't mean to sound smug or self-important, but really, I think that in the long run, my (and my family) attitude to self-healing, does make the body stronger.  At the end of the sick journey, my body isn't still having to deal with the aftermath of chemicals in the system.  Secondary side effects of medication must have some effect, surely?  But it does take grit, determination and courage to "do-it-yourself".

Some remedies I live and swear by are a cough mixture straight out of the garden and pantry:
COUGH MIX
Juice of 2-3 lemons
1-2TBspn honey, diluted in small amount hot water
1-2TBspn olive oil
water to taste
Mix all above in a bottle, shake before taking 1-2TBspn  as often as needed

SORE THROAT REMEMDY
1/2 tspn tumeric, dry-heated in a pan, added to half a glass of water/milk and a tspn honey added, before bed

I also use the homeopathic remedy A.G.E at the onset of a cold or flu, only this time, I didn't have any in the house to take!!  Our local Indian Food supply store stock 2 favourite Ayrurvedic herbal throat lozenges - Kanthil and Sualin.  They contain a natural plant extract which helps deaden and soothe the sore throat.  As Mike was unable to get my favourite throat spray (Zands), he bought a new version - pretty good results; Comvita's Olive Leaf Complex Oral Spray with herbs.
That pretty much sums up my winter woes wrestling arsenal.
Our helpxer, Amy, made this wonderful gift for us, as she
said we made her feel at home!
Be Brave.  The illnesses coming at us are getting stronger it seems.  But conquer the flu and you feel like a hero having just climbed Mount Everest and having lived to tell the tale!  
Life is Sweet!




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