Hi all. I hope I can get some good advice on this as I always have on here so far. I've had a cold for about a week now. It started with sneezing and sinus congestion. Then my ears became plugged up. This cleared up and I now have a dry cough and a very dry throat.
I went to see the doctor yesterday and he said that I don't have any sign of ear infection, but I have quite a bit of inflammation on the left side, in my lymph nodes and in my neck. He prescribed Voltaren for 7 days.
After I got home, I started to feel something on the back of my tongue and when I looked at it, I could see a number of red bumps that look like cold sores. They're at the very back of my tongue where it goes into the throat.
I'm still coughing, so much that I have lower back pain from it. The cough is dry. I remembered that I had tea tree oil in the fridge, so I inhaled it from the bottle and it seemed to help.
I haven't started the Voltaren yet, but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can do do help this clear up. I'm drinking green tea straight, I'm avoiding coffee and sugar, and eating quite a bit of fruits and veggies to clean out my system, but it's not clearing out. 🙁
So, any tips or suggestions to speed this along? I have a friend arriving in 2 days, so I need to be in good shape.
Hi there natalie!
Yes, there are lots of 'bugs' about just now - few people seem to have avoided them.
How the body reacts to infections is more to do with how feisty and balanced the immune system is. You do right to eat more veggies - make sure some of them are raw - and green tea.
If you want to get rid of this quickly, Patrick Holford suggests vitamin C in big doses - that is 3000mg of non-acidic vitamin C (ester-C, magnesium ascorbate, etc) every 4 of hours to bowel tolerance (ie loose stools), this saturates the bloodstream and simply stops viruses surviving. once the cold is gone, reduce vit C to 1-2gms daily. Black elderberry extract (sambucol) from healfood shops stops viruses getting inside you cells and multiplying. 10 drops of echinacea 2-3 times a day helps too. I take Cat's claw herbal remedy - as a tea ot capsules 3 x times a day. All of this should sort it out!
And now I must go and take my own advice :o. Been suffering and kept thinking it will be better tomorrow!
Thanks Caroline. I'm taking about 2000 mg of vitamin C daily, but I'll increase that.