Natural Ways to Not Feel Like Crap During Colds and Flu

Once upon a time, or actually twice upon a time now, we’ve met up with several families for a week of vacation. With 20+ kids in one house for a week, what could possibly go wrong?

Turns out, lots of things, but one in particular:

All the kids getting sick. In a row. All week long.

It was super fun… or not so much.

The Symptoms

They had many of the common symptoms of colds and flus, like:

• Fever
• Body Ache
• Respiratory Symptoms
• Headache
• Dry/sore throat

Natural Cold and Flu Remedies

Thankfully, the incident not-so-lovingly-known as the great minor cold pandemic of family vacation was minor and passed pretty quickly, but we had a rough couple of days.

Thankfully, many of the moms were well-versed in natural remedies and collectively pulled out the herbs, spices, raw honey, garlic, essential oils and supplements to get the kids through it pretty quickly.

Important…

It’s important to see a medical professional for any major or serious illness, but for the cases where I’d just pay a co-pay to have a doctor tell me to give my kids water and soup, I spend the money on these remedies instead. (And we do go to the doctor for anything major or serious or that lasts longer than a few days.)

For illnesses that conventional medicine can’t do much for anyway, I turn to these natural remedies. They won’t knock out all symptoms or provide the pain relief of an over the counter, but they help ease the crappish feeling of a cold (super scientific term, eh?)

Kitchen Remedies to Ease Discomfort

Even we I don’t have access to my whole natural medicine cabinet, some simple grocery store remedies can make a big difference! These are my go-to kitchen remedies:

Lots of Water

I find that we all feel better when we stay well hydrated, but especially during illness. Doctors often recommend rest and hydration for minor illness and the advice is sound. At first sign of illness, we make sure to sip water all day to support the body’s natural healing process.

And Herbal Teas

 

Bone broth and soup

Lemon juice

Ginger

Raw Garlic

Apple Cider Vinegar

Other Natural Remedies

Elderberry

vitamin c

 

What we did do:

• Hydration-At the onset of first symptoms, they all started drinking a lot of water, up to a gallon and a half that day in my husband’s case
• Hot Tea and tons of Homemade Bone Broth-As hot liquids have been shown to stimulate the immune system and stop proliferation of the flu virus, they all continuously sipped hot herbal teas, homemade chicken soup and hot water with lemon juice and honey.
• Vitamin C More and more evidence is showing that vitamin C is the ascorbic acid form can battle the flu and other viruses better than medication. For the kids, I started with 500 mg chewable doses and continued until they reached bowel tolerance (the point that it causes diarrhea) and then reduced to half doses every two hours. This amounted to about 3,000 mg total by the time they were symptom free. I continued 500 mg a day for several days to increase immunity. For my husband, I gave 500 mg every hour until bowel tolerance and half doses every hour after. This amounted to almost 5,000 mg for him by the time he was symptom free.
• Homemade elderberry syrup 1 Tablespoon every hour for husband, 1/2 Tablespoon every hour for kids. This is very similar to Sambucol, which is sold nationwide.
• Organic Apple Cider Vinegar with “the mother”-One Tablespoon in 8 oz water every three hours. This alkalizes the body and kills any yeast that can be feeding infection.
• Removal of carbs and sugars from the diet until completely well-At the first symptom, all three were pulled off of carbs and sugars, which can feed infection. If hungry, they ate tons of soup, healthy forms of protein, vegetables, and vegetable smoothies.
• Lots of rest. This one is pretty obvious during any illness

I purposely did not give fever reducing medicine to any of them. As with any illness, I carefully monitor temperature and don’t make any effort to bring it down until it hits at least 104 (which never happens for us). For anything less than 104, I simply use the regimen above. Fever is the body’s natural response to illness and is a sign that the infection is being fought by the body. Reducing the fever really is not necessary unless it gets to a dangerous level. Both kids had fevers in the 103 range, and without the aid of Tylenol or medication, fought the infection and kicked the fever in 12 hours.

Hopefully none of you will deal with any illness this year, but if you do, maybe some of this may help you too.

How do you keep from getting sick or remedy it naturally when you do? Share your tips below!

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