…a couple tips to manage a cold/flu
…Goodbye summer, hello cold and flu season! It’s here, and I for one have already been taken down by one of the season’s evil demon viruses. I was feeling fine a week ago, last Saturday to be exact. I was running my usual 4 miles, getting in a good cardio session, when, BAM! out of nowhere, later in the day I get the symptoms of allergies..a cold…or pharyngitis??. Yeah, sounds weird but I really got all that together at once, and out of nowhere: post nasal drip, sore throat, sneezing, runny nose, feverish, and a general feeling of "icky" is the best way to describe it.
Well, that day the wind had kicked up and the sky was getting darker and gloomier as the hours went by. So my first thought was that this must be allergies from the wind blowing something around in the air, so not too big a deal, right? I took an OTC allergy medicine, and went out to run some errands. The medicine usually works on me with only one dose, but this time it seemed to do nothing to help ease my symptoms. While I was out, the wind was still blowing and I felt even worse…I couldn’t finish all my errands because I felt so bad. I kept sneezing, my nose was running, and I had a sore throat and I was tired. So I went home, and tried to get some rest, but woke up in the middle of the night with a stuffy nose, sore throat, and sneezing.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I went online and tried to find natural cures for allergies, since that is what I kinda still thought I had. One thing I found was "oil pulling." I mentioned that in an earlier post, and I have been doing it and seems to have helped me to some degree.
To ease my sore throat, I found that apple cider vinegar works wonders. It sounds gross, I know, but you just put some in water, about 2 tablespoons, and drink it. You can dilute it with more water if you need to, because it will still work. I put it in a water bottle,16.9 ozs of water in it. It dried up the post nasal drip and really ended the sore throat. But I had to keep it up throughout the day, or the pnd and sore throat would return. You really should try this if you get a sore throat. I couldn’t believe how fast it worked, and I didn’t need to take any medication.
The next thing I did is make sure I got enough vitamin C. My appetite was down, so I had to force myself to eat because I know I would stay sick longer if I didn’t. I made a smoothie concoction that tasted great and got the protein and vitamin c in my body that I needed…
I took 8 oz of juice, (I used cranberry, but you can use any you like that is high in vitamin c) and 2 kinds of fruit, and put my protein powder in and blended. I used 1 orange paired with 1 apple, or 1 orange paired with strawberries or any kind of fruit high in vitamin C for mine. I also knew that I wouldn’t feel like eating my spinach like I should, so I added 1/2 c of frozen spinach to this mix. Sometimes I added 1/2c frozen carrots instead. Because the orange flavor is so strong, you can’t taste the spinach or the carrots in the mix, and you are getting some needed veggies+antioxidants into your body too!! And it tastes great!…I used the "Magic Bullet" little blender to make mine, if you don’t have one or don’t know what that is, look into it because it is the absolute best way to make quick, easy smoothies for one serving without dragging out the whole blender and dealing with cleanup.
I drank the smoothies 2 times a day as meals in my 5-6 meal day. I didn’t take any more cold or allergy medicine after that first dose that didn’t really help me. I can honestly say I never felt tired this whole week like I normally would when a virus invades my body. The only reminder that I was still sick was, I would wake up with a little sore throat, but that would quickly go away when I drank the vinegar and water mixture…if I didn’t drink the vinegar water for a while though the sore throat would come back so you kinda need to sip it throughout the day. It’s not that gross if you really want to feel better quickly without drugs.
I hope you all stay well this winter season!
