Your favourite cold and flu home remedies?

[Pangur Ban]

I sitting here surrounded by tissues, ( mainly used ) and cough lolly wrappers.

Within the last 5 minutes I have sneezed on the monitor, ( was easy to clean ) and on the cat. ( was NOT easy to clean )

I've been off work for 3 days with a triple whammy of head cold, throat inflammation/infection, and ear infection.

I can't even play play Dungeon Siege - the 3D is making me nauseous.
( Pause here for sympathy ) [img]graemlins/cat3.gif[/img]

OK, IWers, what's your favourite ( working ) cure for a cold?
I'll try almost anything at this point ....

Pang.

[Lord of Alcohol]

As stupid as it sounds Campbells Chicken Noodle soup always makes me feel better for awhile. Plus it barfs out easilly if need be lol. Hope your feeling better sooner!

At work, we have a particular place we take people if they are starting to get sick. A hot dish loaded with msg will cure most common illnesses.

It doesn't barf up anywhere near as well as Lord of Alcohol's solution though! [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img]

[Sazerac]

Three words: Garlic, garlic, garlic. [img]smile.gif[/img] It works, trust me. Do as LoA says, get some chicken soup, and lace it liberally with garlic. It stimulates the thymus gland (which is the center of the immune system) and strengthens your body to fight off the "invasion".

If you have a stuffy nose, add some hot pepper sauce to it (not much, depending on how strong a stomach you have). I find that Tabasco works well; a couple of dashes of it. Not only that, but peppers are high in Vitamin C which is great against colds.

Other than that: lots of fluids, and bed rest. Hope you get to feeling better!

-Sazerac

[Epona]

OK, my mum is a health nut and a bit overprotective of me (I'm 31 years old for f*cks sake) and every time I get a cold she appears as if by magic with a plethora of herbal remedies which do seem to help a bit. Here are some of them:

Echinacea and garlic tablets
Lemon & Ginger tea
Elderflower tea
Red sage tea (add a pinch of chilli powder)
Eucalyptus oil (inhale it)

Soup is always a good one.

Paracetamol or Aspirin lowers a fever but watch out if you're taking other remedies with those ingredients.

Alternatively, just get blind drunk and you forget you're ill.

[ 05-08-2002, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]

[Lord of Alcohol]

Garlic rules, I add it to my soup too!

[Pangur Ban]

Pangur's lunch will consist of the following:

Chicken soup with lots of garlic and a dash of Tabasco
Lemon and ginger tea
A good dose of Drambuie !!

The scented oil burner has now been set up with Eucalyptus oil

Thanks, everyone, for all the advice .. [img]graemlins/cat3.gif[/img]

[Ladyzekke]

Try Echinacea, it's a good herb for enhancing the immune system. Also, Elderberry Extract is excellent, is the best in my book, but works best if taken right in the beginning stages of a cold or flu, but still beneficial all the way around [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Epona]

True Wendy - if you start taking Echinacea when you first get symptoms it can shorten the duration of a cold or flu by several days.

[Animal]

Garlic, Garlic and more Garlic. Chase that with a 26'r of rye whiskey. The next morning you'll think you're dying (or wish you were) but by mid afternoon you'll be ready to take on the world. I think the combination of garlic and whiskey pretty much kills everything in the body, but it's worked for me in the past.