A nasty chest cold was making the rounds during the holidays, and for some people, it kept coming back just when they thought they’d had it licked. I’ll share the remedies that have worked for me and loved ones over the years to ease symptoms, speed healing, and stay well. First, though, it will help you to have a little background info so that you can make informed choices about what you take for a cold. But if you want to just skip down and take a look at the remedies, check out the bullet points after this discussion.

 

Currently, there are only a handful of pharmaceutical anti-viral drugs and most of them are not that effective for any but a handful of viral infections. They can have significant side-effects as well. Because viruses take over our cellular machinery to replicate, it’s difficult to eradicate them without also killing ourselves. In addition, the viruses mutate quickly, so drugs lose their effectiveness pretty quickly, too. For these reasons, these drugs are used sparingly, only in the most serious cases, and much of the time, they don’t work anyway. (Note: Antibiotics treat bacterial illnesses only; they have no effect on viruses and do nothing for a cold or flu.)

 

Many scientists think that there is a genetic drive in the microbial kingdoms to resist or mutate around heavy-duty drugs, which is actually in our own best interests. We tend to have a simplistic idea of the relationship between what we think of as our human selves and our microbial neighbors. Human: Good. Microbe: Bad. And we may feel, in the middle of a nasty infection, that all we want to do is to kill this thing, whatever it is. As I mentioned in an earlier post, though, our bodies are 90% bacteria. We couldn’t live without them; for one thing, they digest our food for us. So we don’t want to kill all our bacteria. Numerous viruses reside on us and inside of us, too, quite possibly performing functions we’re unaware of (some viruses have become incorporated into our DNA over time, as a matter of fact, where they appear to serve a beneficial function). So it might not be a great idea, even if it were possible, to “kill” all our viruses, either.

 

It’s been estimated that more than half of the world’s biomass is composed of microbes, and the majority of them perform functions that all life needs to survive, such as breaking down waste and dead organisms, as well as creating most of the nitrogen in the air that we breathe. Antibiotics don’t distinguish between bacteria that we think of as “bad” and ones that perform essential ecological functions. When we take antibiotics and give them to livestock and introduce them into the watershed through our waste, we’re affecting all the bacteria that these drugs come in contact to. They won’t all get killed, of course; a percentage of both “good” and “bad” bacteria will survive, and those are the ones that will have a resistance to the antibiotic. This ongoing resistance is built into the genetic system and thank God it is! Nature is wiser and smarter than we are and often works to protect ourselves from ourselves. So while scientists are out there trying to find some elusive and possibly disastrous magic bullet, effective alternatives exist that we can use in the meantime.

 

One more thing before I begin: Over-the-counter pharmaceutical remedies might make you feel better temporarily, but they can make your symptoms worse if you take them for longer than a few days and they don’t help to shorten the duration of a cold. Not only that, they have significant and potentially serious side-effects and interactive effects that you should be aware of. Most of them contain acetaminophen, for example (aka Tylenol). Acetaminophen is not well-metabolized by the liver. Overdoses are very serious and often fatal. If you’re taking a cold remedy for your cold and, say, Tylenol for pain or inflammation or fever on top of that, you risk a potential drug overdose. If you do take an over-the-counter cold remedy, make note of what is in it and make sure that you’re not taking an additional amount of any of the ingredients.

 

One of the most effective ways I’ve found to combat a chest cold is by using essential oils. Essential oils have been in mankind’s healing arsenal for thousands of years and don’t attempt to bludgeon a virus to death. Perhaps because of this, it appears that viruses and essential oils have developed some kind of co-evolutionary relationship. Essential oils have the same anti-viral properties that they’ve had from time immemorial; viruses are not evolving resistance to them. This may also be due to the fact that the oils are strengthening our immunity rather than trying to “kill” the viruses (which are technically not really “alive” in the first place).

 

•  One of the best remedies is to take a pot of water, bring it to a boil, place it on a hot mat on a table and put a few drops of any of these oils in the water (just a few drops total): Eucalyptus, Thyme, Marjoram, Palmarosa, Peppermint, Rosemary, or Ravensare. Taking care not to burn yourself, drape a towel over your head and the pan and inhale the steam. Be careful to breathe carefully at first since the steam will be very hot. As it cools, you can take deeper breaths. This is great for opening up stuffed-up sinuses as well.

 

•  Make a chest rub of essential oils: Into 1 Tb of Sweet Almond Oil, put 3 drops of Eucalyptus, 3 drops Thyme, 3 drops Ravensare, 3 drops Marjoram, 3 drops Rosemary, and 3 drops Hyssop or Palmarosa (you can use fewer types of oil and just increase the number of drops of them to come up with the same total of drops—no more than 18—per Tb of carrier oil). Rub it into your chest and back two to three times a day.

 

•  Purchase an Aroma Fan and use any of the oils mentioned above. You’ll be inhaling these therapeutic oils the whole time it’s on and you’re in the room. Adding some lavender is always a nice idea as it will help soothe your spirits.

 

 

•  Give the ol’ thymus gland a friendly thumping. This will stimulate production of T cells that will go after the viruses. Firmly thump the middle of your breastbone; you know, the spot Tarzan was always pounding when he yodeled. Yodeling optional.

 

Please refer to my post of November 17, 2008, “Remedies to Keep Colds and Flu at Bay” to read about the precautions you should take in using essential oils and to find a link to a source of oils that are high quality enough to be used medicinally. Inexpensive, poor quality oils won’t have medicinal value and you’ll just be wasting your money.  That post also has a link to a source for an Aroma Fan.

 

 

 

Above:  A picture of one of our Toyon bushes, before roving bands of voracious, whacked-out robins descended and devoured the berries.