Change of season increases illness
Reported January 22, 2009
A common time for people to experience a cold or flu is during a change of season. My office gets flooded with calls in September as kids head back to school, sniffles and coughs are common complaints as summer gives way to autumn weather.
Now, as the snow hits the ground, we prepare for the second round of stuffy heads and runny noses. While most colds are self-limiting, meaning they will go away on their own in five to seven days, it is always nice to be equipped with some comfort measures, something you can do for yourself or your children to help speed the healing process, or ease the symptoms.
* Give yourself time off, if possible
When you are coming down with a cold or the flu, get plenty of rest and relaxation. Allow time for your body to heal. Eat warm, cooked food and drink plenty of warm liquids. Avoid sugar, as it works directly against the immune system. Many people reach for copious amounts of orange juice during a cold to increase their vitamin C intake. I would advise you to eat oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, and bell peppers, but skip the juice, which is quite high in sugar. Most people find that avoiding dairy products also helps prevent the over production of mucus during a head cold.
* Perform home hydrotherapy
To fight off a cold or flu use warming socks. Get a knee-high pair of cotton socks and a pair of wool socks.
Soak the cotton socks in cold water, wring them out and then put them on your feet. Put the dry wool socks on top and then go to bed. The body will respond by warming the feet, thus draining the congestion from the head.
* Support your fever
To reduce a fever, drink a couple of glasses of water, apply cold wet compress to the forehead and chest and take a long tepid bath or sponge bath. Rest, drink plenty of fluids, peppermint tea, yarrow and catnip have all been used traditionally to help break fevers.
Limit your food intake until the fever breaks naturally. Fevers below 39C (102F) are seen as “friendly” and a reaction of the body’s immune system to fight infection and to eliminate toxins.
We can aid the elimination of toxins through the skin by inducing perspiration. Try taking long hot baths, using an infra-red sauna or steam room. Increasing perspiration through the skin is one of the safest and most effective ways of eliminating toxins during a cold or flu.
* Treat yourself with homeopathy
An advantage to using low dose homeopathic remedies to treat your family is the safety of this form of medicine. No side effects or drug interactions occur with homeopathy, making it a good choice for families with small children, pregnant women or people on multiple medications.
There are two guiding principals with homeopathy. The first is the law of similars, meaning that the symptom picture of an illness must match as closely as possible to the symptom picture of the choosen remedy. The more information you have about the illness, and the better you know the remedy picture, the better your choice will be. The second principal is that of using the minimum dose. Which means using as little as a medicine as possible to stimulate the body’s own healing mechanism. Give only one dose (pellet) and wait to see what relief it brings. If things improve, do not re-dose unless the cold/flu stops improving before full recovery is made, or a relapse is symptoms are seen.
* Consider:
Aconite — for early stages of cold when the person has experienced a chill.
Arsenicum — for thin, watery burning discharge with colds.
Pulsitilla — for thick, yellow profuse discharge which is worse in the morning.
Gelsemium — for colds with body acing and intense desire to stay in bed.
Silica — for a cold which is slow to go, especially in people with low resistance to infection.
For the flu, which presents in many different ways, many different remedies might be considered, but if you are able to catch it in its very early stages, a combination remedy for flu, such as Boiron’s Oscillococcinum can be very helpful, and eliminates the need to follow the law of similars, since it combines all of the most likely remedies for early stages of flu.
So bundle up and enjoy the beauty this season has to offer; crisp fresh air, snow sports like skiing, sliding and snow shoeing, or skating at one of our great outdoor venues. Remember, it’s the simplicity of eating well and staying active that will be the best protection against this winter’s bugs.
* Blossom Bitting ND owns Sage Health Centre located at 132 Weldon St. in Moncton (382-7243), a family oriented practice which focuses on health optimization through a natural holistic process. She is the vice president of the New Brunswick Association of Naturopathic Doctors (www.nband.ca), and is a representative to the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors (www.cand.ca). Her column appears every fourth week in Life & Times.