Cough & Cold. Lots of down time!

A lot of adult and kids pick on bugs and viruses during winter season. The symptoms can vary from cough, cold, runny nose, headaches, muscle aches, diarrhea….you name it! Here are a few holistic approaches that should help the body recover faster.

Essential Oils

My favourite option for kids, or even adults.  A few essential oils can be combined together for better results. e.g. 3 drops of each Eucalyptus, Tea Tree Oil & Lavender in a diffuser overnight. Pick a diffuser that has 7 to 10 hours straight run, So you don’t need to wake up

at night and refill it. It pretty much covers the whole night and turns off in the morning by itself e.g. Zen Diffuser Ultrasonic., or any other ones that can hold more volume of water. The bigger the diffuser’s capacity to hold water, the longer it will run.

Eucalyptus Oil, helps open up airways and clears up congestion.

Tea Tree Oil, serves as a disinfectant for the air and keeps it clean.

Lavender, does the magic touch for enhancing sleep at night.

Herbs and Natural Remedies

Consume Ginseng or Echinacea in fair amount should boost your immune system.

Nin Jiom Cough Syrup, is a cough syrup with much Honey plus other natural Herbs that makes it a great natural remedy for annoying night cough and helps break up the phlegm especially when drinking a lots of fluids.

Elderberry tablets/syrup/lozenges can be helpful with the runny nose and most symptoms associated with the cold, till your body fights it off.

Zinc lozenges, helps heal faster sore throat and the rest of the body.

Homeopathic Remedies

New guidelines have prohibited the use of cough syrups for kids 6 years old and under, so parents have been left with no options. Helixia or Stodal are two of the very limited great options for kids from age 1 till 11 years old where all cough syrups are not recommended.

Coryzalia can be almost the only option for runny nose for infants, toddlers and kids. It works like a charm and parents can squeeze 1 ml ampoules orally in their kids mouth before going out.

Some helpful tips!

Increase the humidity at home. During cold winter season, indoor air gets warmer and drier leading to more airway issues mostly in kids. Cough, Croup and breathing issues can get worse during that time. Humidity can be increased slightly using a humidifier, or even keeping a bucket of water in one of the room where you spend most of the time. You can mark the buckets before and after, to see how much water goes down. Also, it can be a cool quick trick to know if the air is too dry. In that case, the water will go down quickly pretty much. Some diffusers can do both; diffuse essential oils and work as a humidifier during the night. These are the best options.

Apply Vicks Gel (or Camphor, Eucalyptus & Lavender Oils) to a tissue paper and double fold the tissue. Put it between clothes layers on the chest area over the night, can be of great aid through the night.

Over the Counter Products

• Tylenol, can help with headaches and pain. Better option than Advil.
• Advil, can be stronger working on headaches and pain. Caution, High blood pressure, Heart problems and sensitive stomach. Not recommended, unless strong pain and bad headaches.
• Decongestants, can be taken for tough congestions especially through the day. Avoid at night. It can keep you up at night.
• Antihistamines, can be of great aid for runny nose & sneezing. Caution, avoid in the morning as it might make you drowsy. Better taken at night. Otherwise, pick non drowsy ones to cover your symptoms through the day at work.

What to avoid

If blood pressure is not controlled, try to avoid these decongestants like Pseudoephedrine, epinephrine…etc. They tend to increase your blood pressure and make things worse.

If you’re diabetic, try look for sugar free cough syrup.

Prescriptions

In some bad scenarios, a prescription is needed. For example; an antibiotic, inhalers and/or oral steroids. Book an appointment with your doctor if any of these are happening;

• Fever

• Your symptoms are persistent for more than a week, and not getting better.

• Green or brown phlegm when coughing. It mostly means a bad infection and your body needs something stronger like an antibiotics.

Important Note: If you ever got prescribed an antibiotics, make sure you supplement with a strong probiotic. Probiotics should not be taken at the same time as antibiotics, otherwise the antibiotics will kill both; the bad and the good!

Space out both by roughly 4-6 hours, if possible.

Not all Probiotics are created equal

Best Probiotics to take along antibiotics should have:

High Billion count (>25 Billion) or at least contains one or both of these strains;

• Bifidobacterium bifidum

• Lactobacillus acidophilus

• Saccharomyces boulardii