I realized early on this week that all the kids had the flu (funnily enough, ds18 called home and he has it, too!), though I didn’t feel like mentioning it to anyone in person because I didn’t feel like answering the inevitable question: “You didn’t give them a flu shot?” Because if I was asked that, I would have felt it necessary to explain that the underlying assumptions about the effectiveness of the flu shot are false, along with a host of other points that I didn’t feel like getting into about vaccines concerns. And sure enough, the first person I mentioned the flu to exlaimed, “What, you didn’t give them a flu injection? I take it every year and I never get the flu!”
I really dislike that the seasonal flu is now on its way to being considered life threatening, along with everything else that we have vaccinations for. Sure enough, this same woman told me about how many people die every year from the flu – as I said, I know when starting even a casual conversation about a topic like this how ready you have to be to intelligently counter the ‘facts’ that people have heard.
Anyway, let me not get onto the flu vaccine issue! The flu isn’t fun but it’s really just a super bad cold, and if you can find ways to move through it faster or more easily, that’s a good thing! Everyone around here has been sleeping lots and drinking plenty of fluids (chicken broth and tea). My go-to remedy for any sickness is high doses of sodium ascorbate dissolved in juice, but not all of our kids like taking it like this.
I realized tonight that my brain was on automatic, and I needed to pause and think about other remedies I might have on hand that would be helpful for the kids. Here’s what I thought of:
– Aconite – this is a homeopathic remedy ideally given at the onset of the flu, which I didn’t do because I wasn’t thinking along these lines. The early dosage would be 3 pellets of 30 c each; I’m thinking three daily doses along for treating it at this point would be good. Homeopathics aren’t my first line of defense because it’s not the area I feel most competent with (and I don’t know what happened to most of my remedies when we moved), but I do have aconite on hand so this is a good option even though we didn’t catch it early.
– Most people are deficient in vitamin D, especially in the winter when the sun isn’t out as often and doesn’t shine as intensely. Did you ever think about why it’s so common to get sick in the winter and not the summer? Our vitamin D levels have a lot to do with that! One of the main immune system functions of vitamin D is to help trigger production of a substance called cathelicidin. Cathelicidin is a naturally produced antibiotic that is able to be made only in the presence of high vitamin D levels in the bloodstream.
The littles have been having cod liver oil a few times a week, but the rest of us haven’t been very consistent with it after my initial efforts. That’s a good option for vitamin D, but I have high quality vitamin D3 in my cabinet, and this has been shown to be very effective in fighting the flu. (I researched this back when there was the H1NI/swine flu hysteria going around – here’s one article if you’re interested.) 3000 – 5000 IU of vitamin D3 seem to be recommended just to maintain adequate vitamin D levels; today I gave everyone 10,000 IU right now to fight the flu (this includes all the kids from age 9 and up – the littles are getting just 5000 IU).
Olive leaf tincture- I made a good sized batch of this back in November. So I pulled it out and put it to use! Rather than make everyone aware I was giving them a dose of it, I made a big batch of regular tea (which everyone requests as soon as they wake up from their extended naps), and added a couple of spoonfuls of the tincture to the large container. The heat will cause the alcohol to evaporate, and the flavor is hardly noticeable because it’s so diluted.
Also, yesterday my first batch of home-cured olives were finished! These were from the olives that I picked on an outing with ds5 and ds2. I thought I’d share instructions for this process once we tasted them, but I’m not fully satisfied with the end results – they’re okay but still have a hint of bitterness underneath. However, as I was eating some today, I was thinking that the effective component in olive leaves is oleuropein, which is bitter. And the reason that you spend three weeks curing the olives is to remove the oleuropein. So maybe our health is benefiting by eating olives that still have some bitterness remaining in them!!
A couple of kids had ear pains in addition to other symptoms, and I fortunately had a batch of what I call my ‘ear oil’ already prepared! Very simply, this is minced garlic that has steeped in olive oil to pull out the healing properties. Strain, and put a few drops into the ear that has pain.
Another child had red and irritated eyes yesterday – I usually use the homeopathic euphrasia for something like this, but as I said above, most of my remedies disappeared when we moved. So I did a bit of googling to see what I had in the house that would be useful, and learned that an eyewash made of fennel seeds or raspberry leaves would be helpful to bathe his eye.
It’s nice to be able to deal with this at home – everyone is feeling kind of yucky, but it’s so valuable to have something in my home arsenal to help my family.
What are your favourite home remedies for the flu, or even just a cold? Have you tried any of the things I mentioned, and if so, how effective were they for you?
Avivah
(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)
Thanks for the tips ; so much better than taking chemically based antibiotics 🙂 Great post and I look forward to sharing more with you:)
what about headaches? What are good substitutes for tylenol?
What is wrong with the flu shot? I’ve never had one, but have been thinking about it. Plenty of people have told me it works for them.
You think customs helped themselves to your homeopathic weaponry? 🙂
Refuah Sheleima to the whole family!
No, I didn’t send anything through customs. I left behind a few boxes of books to be sent in someone else’s lift, and maybe I put my homeopathic remedies in there – I can’t imagine I didn’t take them, but I don’t remember what I did with them!
Here are a few that work for us. For ear pain – cut an onion in half, leave the skin on and bake until soft. Wrap in a t-shirt or something, so it’s not too hot and put against the affected ear. Smells good and helps the pain. Also use the above onion to squeeze a few drops into the ear like ear drops for the same purpose. For pink eye or other “gunky” eye related problems, castor oil used as eye drops works wonders. We are also not into flu shots, sometimes they do more harm than good and it’s not entirely clear whether they actually work. Refuah Shelaima to all of you!
Regina – first of all – mazel tov on the birth of twin boys! Amazing!!
Great tips – I read about someone living in Appalachia doing something similar with an onion by putting it on their chest; it stayed with me because this person was so sick in with minimal medical assistance. I’ve also used onion to make a cough syrup, by mixing it with honey.
I once used castor oil like this, but totally forgot about it until I read what you wrote – thank you for the reminder!
I like homeopathic oscillococcinum for flu, gelsemium for the fever, aches and pains, and pulsatilla for the eye concerns. We are also greatly into grapefruit seed extract and oil of oregano tablets in this house for all sorts of microbial ickiness. Refuah shlayma!
Oh yeah, among other remedies (belladonna, chamomile, apis) pulsatilla also works nicely for ear pain,
Rena, you would not believe how much homeopathics cost. You know those nice little Boiron bottles for less than $8 each? When I was trying to buy a couple of remedies for the chickenpox, I was told they would be 200 shekels for just two!!! (Instead of $16, about $55.) So it becomes a costly option here.
I always think of you when I think of GSE – I think you’re the first one that ever mentioned to me how great it was!
Aviva, wishing you all a R”S. Sounds like you are doing such good things. I love your idea of putting the olive leaf extract in tea 🙂 I love olive leaf extract and use it a lot here too. I only wish I had olive trees growing locally.
I second the oscillococcinum and also have heard that nux vomica is good for the newer strains, you might want to research that, since I don’t remember where I read it. Also elderberry ( sambucus) is great anti-viral and flu remedy, but you need the tincture/extract and not one of the many products that contain “some” elderberry and lots of other stuff too. You can always add some honey to sweeten it for the little ones.
I make something called “master tonic”, it takes about 2 weeks to be ready, but it last forever, so good to make and have on hand. The taste is……really strong, hot and spicey and the little ones might not drink it but the older kids and the adults will.
I made elderberry syrup a couple of years ago (http://oceansofjoy.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/how-to-make-elderberry-syrup/) but don’t have any berries now. I looked for them in the local health food store, but didn’t find any. I know lots of reseach on elderberries was done in Israel so it seems they shouldn’t be so hard to find!
I’ve made what I call Supertonic in the past (http://oceansofjoy.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/buying-herbs-and-making-supertonic/); is this similar to your master tonic? I was thinking that I’d like to make this again, but I don’t have raw apple cider vinegar- do you have suggestions for what to use instead? Alcohol? I wonder how regular vinegar would work.
With my mom planning to come soon, I’m thinking about what things I would ask her to bring that would be helpful healthwise – these suggestions are all great!
Yes! that is pretty much the same tonic, except I haven’t put echinacea in it. I don’t know about regular acv, I do make herbal vinagers with regular ACV as per Susun Weed ( iam still learning with her 🙂 but that is more of a nourishing food and not a medicinal. In alcohol? I don’t know? I have to look into that.Imake all my herbal tinctures in alcohol. Maybe you could order the berries from somewhere local or order from MRH the dried elderberries ( that’s what I do) and have your mom bring them.
I like to give my family equal parts lemon juice and maple syrup maybe 2 tablespoons each. plus dash cayenne pepper ( or more) in hot water. Drink as tea.
I’m pretty sure you can buy raw ACV on iherb or vitacost.
We have a homeopathic flu remedy that is called Mucococcinum and I think it really works pretty well. It might be hard to get in Israel or cost prohibitive. I order it online.
I just found your blog, very interesting. I am planning to homeschool 3 of my children next year. Trying to navigate curriculum that isn’t christian based is harder than I thought.
I am in MI.