What to do when you have a bad cold or flu?

First you should make sure that you don’t have some other condition that is like a cold or flu.

You can have a cold or flu like condition due to the following:

Food Poisoning

If you’ve been exploring new territory – eating in new places, travelling, etc — consider the possibility that you have food poisoning. Generally, if you and at least one other person get sick at the same time (within hours of each other) you have been poisoned. The typical symptoms include cramps, diarrhea, vomiting, malaise (feeling bad), and fever. If it is not too severe, you will get better with time. There are homeopathic remedies (in the Homeopathic First Aid Kits) such as Arsenicum album, Veratrum album, Carbo vegetabilis, Nux vomica, and Lycopodium that can be helpful. If you think it’s severe, go to a hospital emergency room.

Metal Fume Fever

People exposed to metal vapours can get metal fume fever. People around welding, foundries, and similar industries can get this. It seems like the flu, but flu remedies don’t help much because it is poisoning by metal toxicity.

Parasite Infection

Sometimes intestinal flu symptoms are actually signs of parasite infection. You wouldn’t be able to tell this, so treatment with typical flu remedies would still seem to work. The lack of long-term recovery would be the sign that it wasn’t just food poisoning or the flu.

Now you’re pretty sure you have the flu or a cold. What should you do?

First, you want to remove or destroy as many “enemy bugs” as possible. Instead of doing nothing (just hoping that the body will get well on its own), or relying on pills to do the whole job, in natural medicine we try to help your body to help itself. The first thing to do is to clean thoroughly. Have somebody clean the kitchen, the living room, your bedroom, and especially the bathroom. Make sure where you sit or lie down is clean. Take a bath if you want. Add Facial Dip A to your bath water. Then begin cleaning your nose out hourly. By washing away many of the enemy bugs, you leave fewer bugs for your body to kill off. This means that you get well sooner. Wash your hands frequently. Try not to touch your face with your hands, and if you do, don’t touch your mouth. Take at least one enema daily during your illness. What you need to do is to get clean!

Next, you want to use specific nutrition to help your body fight more efficiently.

I often recommend combinations of some of the following ingredients:

1. Vitamin C 1000 mg (1 gram) hourly
2. Zinc 50 mg daily
3. Vitamin A up to 250,00 IU daily (for short terms)
4. Oscillococcinum (a combination homeopathic that helps decrease symptoms)
5. Botanical (herbal) medicines
   a) Echinacea (generally increases white blood cell count)
   b) Goldenseal (Hydrastis) (especially with yellow mucous)
   c) Myrrh (especially for sore throats)
   d) Garlic (Allium sativa) (large doses work best)
   e) Cayenne (Capsicum)
   f) Mushroom extracts
   g) Lomatium (seems to work especially well with frequent or re-occurring fevers and colds)
   h) Ginger (Zingiber)
   i) Baptisia for fever
   j) Achillea (Yarrow) if your fever gets too high [See Fever]
   k) Rumex (dock) good for watery drainage into the throat— tickling, hacking cough
   l) Wild cherry for cough
6. Homeopathic medicines
   a) Arsenicum album
   b) Bryonia alba
   c) China (Cinchona)
   d) Carbo vegetabilis
   e) Echinacea angustifolia
   f) Hydrastis canadensis
   g) Natrum muriaticum

Finally, you can have somebody help you to detoxify with hydrotherapy. This will aid in speedy recovery and re-calibration of your body’s innate immune system.

What do you use to combat your cold or flu?