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I’m not sure if getting six colds this flu season makes me more or less capable of writing this post. Yes, I get sick a lot, but that means I’m always testing home remedies to get better on the cheap. Either way, I know first hand that getting sick eats up valuable time off and costs a lot of money. Here are a few remedies to recover your health.
Note, I am not a medical professional and this is not intended as medical advice!
1. Avoid sick people. Seems simple but it is hard to pull off because sick people hide their illnesses like the plague.
2. Drink orange juice or take Vitamin C. I like the powder Emergen-C packets but they are expensive.
3. Get extra sleep. Even if it’s only 30 minutes, extra rest always helps.
4. Wash your hands. My doctor told me last month that it is the vigorous rubbing that washes off bad bacteria, not that I’m giving up water and soap just yet.
5. Drink tea. You can make pots of super cheap tea with fresh slices of ginger, lemon, and honey. Tasty!
6. Avoid extra sugar. Not sure how true this one is because organge juice has a lot of sugar in it, as does honey (obviously).
7. Gargle with salt water. Years ago my doctor told me to use hot water (though nothing close to what would burn your mouth) because the heat takes away tonsil soreness temporarily.
8. Rinse out your nasal passages with a Neti pot, which is becoming more popular thanks to Oprah. Running salt water through your nose to loosen mucus is not fun, but it’s better than getting a bacterial infection due to a clogged nose!
9. Make a heating pad for sore backs. Get a small towel very damp then microwave it for 30 seconds. It should be pipping hot. VERY carefully apply it to a sore or aching back, making sure that it does not burn the skin. Add more water and re-heat as needed.
What do you do to stay healthy? Do you make your own throat lozenges? Do you eat fresh garlic? Do you use a cloth hanky instead of disposable tissues? I’d really like to try your suggestions!
UPDATE: Readers shared a lot of great suggestions, some of which I’m pasting below.
Jenni Porter has an unusual suggestion:
When anyone in my house (four kids and 2 adults) has the sniffles, we swear by sticking cotton swabs in the hot/warm salt water and swabbing out the snot in our noses. Salt shrinks nasal passages and kills bacteria: excellent for snotty noses that might lead to something more sinister. NO ONE in our family has been on antibiotics since I started doing this last spring at the onset of the Swine flu.
Carol Lee said:
I’m not a medical professional either, but I highly recommend Echinacea w/Goldenseal capsules at the first sign of a sore throat or cold. Three times this flu season, I’ve felt as if a cold was coming on, so I popped just one of these capsules and Voila! no cold! It’s not recommended to take them continuously, just take one if you think you might be catching a cold. I hope it works for you as well as it has for me. The brand I take is NatureMade – 305 mg Active. PS I always wait for a BOGO sale to buy my supplements, especially since you don’t have to buy two of the same thing.
Marie has a simple technique for office workers:
In the office I started using a headset on my office phone. It has cut down on colds to only 1 a year ! People think nothing of picking up a handset to talk but I have never had anyone put on my headset to use my phone. Also wipe down my keyboard and desk area with disinfecting wipes during the day.
Living Doll knows of something better than the Neti pot:
Nice tips! I want to add that the Netipot is kind of old school. A better design is the Nasal Rinse : http://www.neilmed.com/usa/sinusrinse.php. A friend of mine recommended this to me as I occasionally getting pounding sinus headaches. This will give you relief within 1-2 uses and doesn’t require taking any medication (which I try to avoid). They are pretty cheap and you can easily clean it after using, tuck it away and re-use.
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price. 
I try to remember to carry my own pen and avoid “public” writing instruments especially at the doctor’s office or pharmacy. I also use my car key to press buttons at the gas pump. There is a homeopathic flu remedy that you spray under your tongue (available at health food store) that helps a lot if you do end up getting the flu. I know these things sound a little bit like “Monk”, but I used to get sick all the time, and just changing a few habits (plus washing hands) has really helped.
I suggest reading the instructions for a Neti pot before purchasing one. I didn’t and found them so disgusting the pot went back to the shop.
I swear by the Neti Pot.
Another thing that helps is to use a saline spray at night and then put some Vaseline around the outer rim of each nostril. It keeps the air passages open (to a degree).
When anyone in my house (four kids and 2 adults) has the sniffles, we swear by sticking cotton swabs in the hot/warm salt water and swabbing out the snot in our noses. Salt shrinks nasal passages and kills bacteria: excellent for snotty noses that might lead to something more sinister. NO ONE in our family has been on antibiotics since I started doing this last spring at the onset of the Swine flu.
I’m not a medical professional either, but I highly recommend Echinacea w/Goldenseal capsules at the first sign of a sore throat or cold. Three times this flu season, I’ve felt as if a cold was coming on, so I popped just one of these capsules and Voila! no cold! It’s not recommended to take them continuously, just take one if you think you might be catching a cold. I hope it works for you as well as it has for me. The brand I take is NatureMade – 305 mg Active. PS I always wait for a BOGO sale to buy my supplements, especially since you don’t have to buy two of the same thing.
In the office I started using a headset on my office phone. It has cut down on colds to only 1 a year ! People think nothing of picking up a handset to talk but I have never had anyone put on my headset to use my phone. Also wipe down my keyboard and desk area with disinfecting wipes during the day.
Nice tips! I want to add that the Netipot is kind of old school. A better design is the Nasal Rinse : http://www.neilmed.com/usa/sinusrinse.php
A friend of mine recommended this to me as I occasionally getting pounding sinus headaches. This will give you relief within 1-2 uses and doesn’t require taking any medication (which I try to avoid).
They are pretty cheap and you can easily clean it after using, tuck it away and re-use.
My doctor recommended taking Zinc along with Vitamin C to boost my immune system. Now every day of cold and flu season I have one Halls Defense lozenge (the kind with Vitamin C, Zinc and Echinacea). A package of 25 is $2.69, so it’s way cheaper and much easier to stomach than a bottle of Zinc supplement pills. And if you want to try it, the only place I’ve ever seen the Halls Defense with Zinc is CVS.
Another thing I do is make sure to get regular exercise. Usually I work out at the Y, which of course means exposure to lots of germs from all the different people working out. So, I carry a little bottle of hand sanitizer with me and put it on after I use each machine.
I agree with Living Doll. The Neil Med sinus rinse is much better. You can get it at your pharmacy.
Haha, my post about the Halls Defense sounds like a commercial. I swear I wasn’t paid by Halls to post that!
My family hasn’t been sick since we began drinking mangosteen juice from Xango (for the past 15 months). Available through distibutors (like me), by becoming one yourself or by being a “preferred customer”. If you are interested, I can get you more information.
One of the best things you can do to combat viruses is make sure your blood is alkaline. Viruses thrive in an acidic environment. Unfortunately, our diets cause us to be acidic. You can research which foods have an alkaline response in the body, but a few are citrus fruits. It sounds counterintuitive but citrus causes an alkaline response by the body. An easy way to alkalize your body is to consume 1-2 tsp of apple cider vinegar a day. You could put it in water although I manage to take it straight. I sometimes follow it with a little bit of honey. Adding fresh squeezed lemon to your water is a good idea too because of the alkaline response. Sodas are bad, as are carbonated waters like Perrier, etc.
As I read the article on staying healthy, some of the suggestions sounded familiar. Then I recalled getting an e-mail with much the same content but geared specifically to preventing Swine flu. Being ever the skeptic with regard to some of the suggestions, I checked at the time on Snopes.com, which debunked several of them, saying their “efficacy . . . is questionable.” These included gargling with salt water, nasal irrigation, vitamin C, and drinking warm liquids. While some, such as drinking warm liquids, might make you feel better, it will not help prevent influenza. Snopes also says that none of those four activities “is offered as a method of flu avoidance” by the CDC, WHO, or even Dr. Oz. See: http://www.snopes.com/medical/swineflu/prevent.asp.
And now, not from Snopes: Some may swear these things work. It very well may be a placebo effect or the germs simply may have run their course with such timing that the person attributes it to one of those “remedies.”
at the outset of feeling yucky, I do this and advise my girls too, drink lots and lots of liquids, more than you would normally drink, I drink lots of juices, hot teas, hot water, NO dairy products though. The more you drink, the more you flush out the bad stuff.
Also, I take Emergen-C a lot, and not just when I’m feeling sick.
I take a garlic supplement every day. The non smelling kind. It reduces the violent symptoms of the stomach flu, and colds. I knew a girl once who had chronic Mono and she was in & out of hospitals constantly. She was very ill…then a homeopathic doctor put her on garlic pills once a day, vitamin C and a strong multivitamin and if she caught a cold, it would be very mild and never get to the Mono stage. I also use a Neti-Pot – LOVE IT!!