Homeopathic Remedies For The Common Cold - Page 6

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The common cold sounds so innocent but it can really knock you on your butt. All of those plans you had—cancelled. You can’t be sneezing and coughing all over the place (and all over people). It’s not considerate to others, and it isn’t healthy for you. You need to take it easy. But, then again, there are some things you just have to accomplish, even if you’re sick. Sometimes, the world must go on. The kids need to be picked up from school. The dog needs a walk. Those documents need to be reviewed and signed today. Doing all of that, with full-blown cold symptoms feels like its own special form of torture. You wouldn’t wish that feeling on your worst enemy.

You can turn to the usual over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, but not everybody wants to do that—at least not all of the time. Those medicines can become expensive. The lines at the pharmacy suck. And maybe you don’t love pumping your body with chemicals. The bottled and prepackaged stuff can provide relief from your cold symptoms, but it can also come with side effects like drowsiness, nausea, constipation, and other issues that can make you miss that simple runny nose and tension headache the product chased away.

If you absolutely need relief from symptoms so you can survive your long to-do list that won’t go away, just because you have a cold, but you prefer to do things the natural way, there are some great homeopathic remedies that can help. Though you may still work in some of the stuff from the pharmacy, it can be nice to have the option to supplement with healthier remedies when you feel maxed out on chemicals. And it can be much more pleasant to purchase these ingredients than deal with the cranky crowds at the pharmacy. Here are homeopathic remedies for cold relief.

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Eupatorium perfoliatum

Eupatorium perfoliatum, also known as boneset, is a North American perennial plant, the dried leaves or flowers of which homeopaths use to make medicine. It has some mild antibacterial properties, and can help to reduce a fever. It can also combat constipation, which can be a side effect of modern pharmaceuticals used to treat the common cold.

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Ginger tea

Ginger has tons of healing properties. You’re probably already familiar with its nausea-fighting abilities, but it can also help soothe a sore throat or alleviate a cough. Just put a few thin slices of fresh ginger in hot water—or add it to your tea—and sip on this throughout the day. If you are dealing with nausea when eating due to a reduced appetite, this can help you get in the fortifying calories you need.

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Euphrasia officinalis

Popularized in Austria as an ingredient for tea, this herb can help address thick yellow discharge from the eyes that can occur during the cold. Appropriately so, some of its nicknames include Eyebright and Eyewort. You’ll typically receive this herb in the form of eye drops, but it can also be taken orally to address swelling of the nasal passages.

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Rinse out your nose

With warm salt water, that is. Over-the-counter decongestants can leave your entire body feeling incredibly dry and can cause sleep issues. Try this instead: mix 1/4^th a teaspoon of salt and 1/4^th a teaspoon of baking soda in eight ounces of warm water. Use a bulb syringe to spray it in your nose, plugging one nostril, while rinsing the other.

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Sabadilla Officinarum

Native to Central America and Mexico, this toxic plant is often used as a common insecticide, but it can also be used to treat common cold symptoms. It’s actually especially effective in minimizing sneezing. It is used to treat allergy patients who are heavy sneezers, but can have the same effect on those suffering from the cold.

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Pulsatilla Nigricans

This pretty purple plant is native to central and Eastern Europe, and can be useful in treating tension headaches—which can come with the common cold—as well as reducing thick, yellowish-green discharge. It may come in a pellet form that you allow to dissolve in your mouth, or a syrup that you consume one or two teaspoons a day of.

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Echinacea

Echinacea is a pretty pink daisy, but it’s also a powerful immunity booster that you should take both when healthy and sick. It may help your body fight off a virus faster, and it can reduce inflammation in the body, which may contribute to the aches and pains that come with the common cold.

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Allium Cepa

This is just a fancy name for an onion. If watery discharge from the nose and eyes is what’s plaguing you the most, taking a long whiff of a cut onion could actually reduce the symptoms. It may seem counterintuitive, since doing this can cause runny nose and eyes. But it relies on the age-old homeopathic philosophy of “like cures like.”

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Cough it up

Though coughing can be annoying, loud, and painful on the throat, if you are coughing up mucus, don’t suppress it. Don’t swallow. That cough is your body’s way of ridding itself of the mucus that is blocking your lungs and airways. Same with a stuffy nose—blow it, don’t sniff the stuff back up. This is part of the body’s natural healing process.

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Rethink the fever

Fevers are uncomfortable, and can be very dangerous. Always consult a doctor on when and if you should take fever-reducing medications. That being said, know that your body produces a fever because it wants to create a hot environment in which it is difficult for your virus to continue to survive. The fever is one of humankind’s oldest remedies for essentially kicking a virus out of your body. So before immediately taking Tylenol at the first sign of a warm forehead, ask your doctor whether or not you should ride it out.

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Gargle with this mixture

Put 1/4^th a teaspoon of salt in eight ounces of warm water and gargle, spit, and repeat. This can moisten your throat—and a dry throat can be very painful. You can also try gargling with a mixture of one tablespoon of honey, one tablespoon of lemon juice, in two cups of warm water.

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Use a humidifier

Viruses can thrive in dry environments. But furthermore, if you’re dealing with congestion, you need a humid environment to open up the nasal passageways. A dry room will also make your sore throat much worse. So use a humidifier when you are sick. Consider inhaling a bit of eucalyptus oil—just a tiny drop of the stuff on the palm, and up to the nose will do the trip—to open up the airways.

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Chicken soup

Yes, good old-fashioned chicken soup made it onto our list. It offers so many benefits when you’re sick. It gives you the fluids you need to keep flushing out bad stuff. It contains protein, to help you feel strong, and vegetables, to give you important nutrients. It’s also been found to help slow the movement of healing white blood cells, allowing them to gather in one place and work harder for you.

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Natural face moisturizer

Even if you use moistened tissues to blow your nose, blowing it repeatedly is bound to leave the area raw, chapped, and dry. Keep a small tin of natural moisturizer—like coconut oil—nearby, and rub a little around the outside of your nostrils a few times a day to keep that painful dryness at bay. And wash your hands each time you blow your nose so you don’t spread the virus.