Fighting colds & flu

Dear friend Rosemary was ill recently. I offered to recommend some natural remedies & she indicated she was interested.

I thought i already had it compiled in as easy form, but when i went looking for it i couldn't locate it. But i want to have this readily available for myself & anyone else who is interested. I emailed my group of girlfriends & we came up with a partial list. Also, going to reference resources i use when trying to locate info.

To start, i have two that i utilize a lot.

The first (& i believe most important) is Vitamin D3. It has been found that most children in this country are deficient in Vitamin D3. When blood tests are run on individuals who are ill, it is found that no matter what the illness Vitamin D3 levels are almost deficient. This is largely because we don't spend much time outdoors anymore & are slathering ourselves with sunscreen. This is a whole different discussion i'll leave for another time.

Two sources are a good start for info on this. Dr. Mercola has a great deal of info on Vitamin D3. And Andrew Saul has written on it as well. (Andrew Saul is also a big proponent of Vitamin C & his website has lots of info on dosing with Vitamin C.) If you listen to mainstream media & conventional doctors they will tell you that because Vitamin D3 is fat-soluble, it is "easy" to take too much & overdose or become toxic from this vitamin. Andrew Saul has also quite a bit of info on his website on this, so i'll only link to this one on the number of deaths attributable to vitamins. In a nutshell, the most "dangerous" of vitamins is much safer than the most innocuous pharmaceutical. (Iron, a mineral not a vitamin, is probably the supplement which causes the most problems & has most of the overdoses.)

Here is another article on Vitamin D3: Hospitals are a hell of a place to get sick. I don't know about the rest of his blog, i just ran across this, but i found this article accurate of the way hospitals do things.

The second i utilize the most is Manuka honey. Manuka honey is utilized in hospitals in New Zealand, Australia, & the U.K. for wound care as it kills MRSA. I have read that it has been approved by the FDA for use in the U.S., but i have not heard if it is being utilized yet. As far as sore throats, most raw, local honey will also work, but i find Manuka is even more effective. What is more, most honey currently sold in supermarkets is no longer honey such as our ancestors used. Most of the large producers of honey these days take most of the honey the bees made naturally & winter them on high fructose corn syrup. This changes the composition of the honey. It is better to search out raw honey from local producers. It isn't easy to find "organic" honey as the bees travel a distance to the plants they utilize. Organic in honey is fine if you can find it, but it is best to find local, non-commercially raised bees.

Other supplements i keep on hand & use are: Quercetin (good for inflammation & allergies), colloidal silver (natural antibiotic, tho this is hotly debated), tart cherries/juice (good for inflammation & pain), coltsfoot (cough remedy), oil of oregano (builds immune system & good for the respiratory tract), grapefruit seed extract (builds immune system & helps alkalize the body).

Other recommendations (in no particular order) from my girlfriend group included: Sambucol, L-Lysine, vitamin C, & Oscillococcinum (marketed by Boiron as Oscillo, the homeopathic remedy "reduces the severity and duration of flu symptoms"), echinacea, elderberry, raw garlic. I've also heard that onions are good. Also zinc & cutting out sugar is vital. This is another blog i follow - Health Begins with Mom & her recommendations, or at least the protocol she followed recently when her son had the flu.

I've just found Dr. Christopher's Herbal Legacy. This website has a number of different ailments listed but i've linked directly to the Colds/Flu page.

This is Dr. Mercola's Flu update page.

Another excellent resource is the forum at Hawke's Health. This is a forum where folks can post articles & info about natural health. The resources listed are astounding. A number of different categories are listed. Or a member can post a question & get responses from other members. Unfortunately, you won't be able to reach HH today as their bandwidth is exceded. However, i've been told it should be back up as of tomorrow (the 1st of the month).

When i had a cold recently what i relied on most was the Manuka honey, colloidal silver, green tea &/or lemon, large doses of Vitamin D3. I later added the anti-viral herbs provided by the acupuncture doc. And, i rested - A LOT !

Hope this is helpful. If anyone has any questions or additional suggestions i'd love to hear it. :) Here is to wellness thru this coming winter.

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