Rhinitis, cold, cold, rhinitis, flu
Introduction
Who does not know this? The nose runs all the time and when it finally doesn’t run it is blocked, you sleep very badly because you can’t get any air through your nose and also otherwise you feel rather tired and weak. You can fight these symptoms with drugs like Aspirin® Complex or Gripppostad© and nasal spray helps very well against a runny or blocked nose.
You may feel better after taking medication, but would the medication really have been necessary? You can fight colds very well with home remedies. Since colds are caused by viruses, the above-mentioned drugs only fight the symptoms, not the causes.
Household remedy against colds
Many foods are suitable not only for the preparation of meals but also for the treatment of a cold and some of them have been passed on for centuries. Drinking warm chicken soup inhibits inflammation in the throat, has a beneficial effect due to its warmth and also returns the liquid lost through the cold. Often colds are also associated with increased body temperatures, the purpose of which is to kill off the pathogens in the body.
Fever is acceptable to a certain extent, but should be lowered if it rises sharply. Calf compresses with a water-vinegar mixture, which are wrapped around the calves and left there until the coolness subsides, help here. Afterwards, the process should be repeated up to three times.
Furthermore, in case of fever you can wipe the entire body with a cloth soaked in cold water. Different kinds of tea, such as lime blossom tea or elderberry tea are also often given for colds. They cause the body to rid itself of the pathogens through night sweats and increased body temperature.
Do you have a cold and want to avoid medication? Our topic could help you with this: Tea for colds – How do I make it myself? Both inhalative steam baths and bathtub baths are also frequently used to treat colds.
The inhalation bath should be done with herbal remedies camomile or salt, the bath tub bath with spruce needle, eucalyptus, menthol or thyme extracts. During the bath, slow and deep breaths should be observed and a bathing time of 10-15 minutes should not be exceeded due to the circulatory weakening effect. Steam baths and bathtub baths loosen tense muscles, free the nose and relieve chills.
The well-known gargling is also used for cold-related inflammations of the throat. Straight tea tree oil can provide relief as bath additive or in gargling solutions for cold complaints. See below: Tea tree oil – application tips The salt water solution gargling is also a simple and well-tried household remedy that can help against sore throat, coughing and inflammations in the mouth by the disinfecting effect of brine.
Important for the effectiveness is the quality and quantity of the salt as well as the duration and frequency of the gargling. Camomile or sage should be boiled in water, then cooled and gargled in the throat for several minutes. This process should be repeated several times a day.
Wraps in many variations are also used for colds. A poultice with curd cheese has a cooling effect (e.g. lowering fever), and potato poultice has a heat-retaining effect (to relieve coughing or sore throat when the warm poultice is placed on the neck and chest). Herbal teas made from marshmallow root, Icelandic moss, aniseed, fennel and lime blossom have been shown to be helpful against chesty cough.
For a stuffy nose, nasal rinses with salt water can bring relief several times a day. Onions are a tried and tested household remedy for many everyday ailments. As soon as one notices that a cold is coming, a tea made from onions provides relief.
It is even possible to nip the cold in the bud if the onion is used early enough. Simply peel three to four onions, cut them into quarters and then pour about half a liter of boiling water over them. The whole thing should then be able to stand for about half an hour.
If you do not like the taste at all, you can sweeten the tea with sugar or honey. Even if such a tea does not sound very appetizing, it is definitely effective against viruses.By the way, some people and especially children like the taste of onion tea very much. Of course, there is also the possibility to make an onion syrup that almost completely covers the taste of onion.
For this purpose, onions are peeled again and then quartered. Now, however, the onion pieces are covered with sugar. Leave it alone for two to three hours, in any case until the onion juice comes out.
The sugar is osmotically active here and thus draws the juice out of the onions. The taste of this syrup depends on the amount of sugar used, but you will hardly ever taste onions but rather the sweetness of the sugar. But the onion as a helper against colds can do even more.
Chopped into small pieces and wrapped in a clean tea towel it also helps against headaches. Simply place the finished wrap on your forehead and leave it there for an hour. At the same time, the leaking juice releases the paranasal sinuses and you can breathe much better.
A shower afterwards helps well against the pungent smell. Ginger is an all-purpose wonder weapon and can actually always be used. It is said to have a stimulating effect on the immune system.
The essential oils contained in ginger have an antibacterial effect and the sharpness makes the human body sweat. Sweating is good for colds. For colds, ginger can be drunk as tea.
It is best to peel fresh ginger tubers and cut them into small slices. Then pour boiling water over them and let the tea steep for a while. It can then be sweetened with honey or drunk straight.
To enhance the healing properties of ginger, the ginger slices can also be eaten. The taste is very hot and not suitable for every palate. Ginger can also be used as a spice when cooking, if ginger tea is not to be drunk at all.
Hot lemon is probably the classic when it comes to household remedies for colds. The lemon contains a lot of vitamin C, which the body needs to get healthy again. The vitamin C strengthens the immune system.
Unfortunately, it is destroyed by too high temperatures. For this reason, the freshly squeezed lemon juice should only be poured with lukewarm water and then sweetened with honey. Boiling water largely destroys the vitamins contained in the juice.
It is best to squeeze the lemon juice freshly just before drinking it to ensure that all vitamins are still present. Of course, the juice can also be drunk pure. The lemon teas offered in stores no longer contain vitamin C, which can be absorbed by the body.
Honey has an antibacterial effect and strengthens the immune system in the fight against the pathogens that cause colds. Honey is therefore often used as a household remedy for colds. Honey is excellent for sweetening drinks.
Instead of sugar it supports the self-healing of the body with its own substances. Whether in ginger tea or in tea with onions, honey can always be used very well. Hot milk with honey also has a supportive effect against the common cold, on the other hand it calms the body and promotes the urgently needed sleep.
The body needs sufficient sleep to fight the cold. Apple vinegar is a suitable household remedy, especially for bacterial infections such as tonsillitis. With the “normal cold”, which is usually caused by viruses, its effect is controversial.
Nevertheless, one can try to get relief with apple vinegar, for which it is best mixed with honey and water and drunk slowly. Warm beer is a tried and tested household remedy for colds. It works best if it is used right at the beginning of a cold, similar to tea made from onions.
Warm beer ensures that the skin vessels are better supplied with blood and the body starts sweating. In the best case, the body also excretes the viruses that cause the cold through sweat. Beer is heated in a pot or in a water bath and then drunk.
The beer should not boil under any circumstances, otherwise the alcohol will evaporate. After drinking the beer, the patient should go to bed and sleep for one night. It is also helpful to wrap up well with a hot-water bottle and a thick blanket to support sweating.Both sleep, hopefully due to the alcohol, and sweating support the healing of the body.
If the taste is too unpleasant, you can also add sugar or honey to the warm beer. Make sure that sugar allows the alcohol to enter the bloodstream faster. Therefore go to bed immediately after drinking and have a good night’s sleep.
For the pregnant woman applies as for each other ill person as highest requirement: Much drinking, in order to make cold and cough legs! Where, however, caution is required, is in the use of medicines, because the substances contained in them often enter the circulation of the unborn child to varying degrees. To ease the way out of a cold without medication, many household remedies can provide relief and are completely harmless to the unborn child.
In the case of a cold, ordinary saline solution can be simply drizzled into the nose to make it easier to breathe. Inhaling steam in the form of a steam bath can also relieve the symptoms. Essential oils added to the water bath, such as peppermint, eucalyptus or thyme oil, can also have a liberating effect.
Coughing is usually best treated with cough syrup. During pregnancy, however, it is better to replace this with onion syrup, as most juices available in pharmacies contain alcohol, which can cause serious damage to the child. Onion syrup can easily be made from a large onion or alternatively from black radish by cutting it up and mixing it with rock candy.
The resulting mass can then be spooned several times a day. Learn more about this under: Inhalation for a cold If you suffer from a sore throat, sage tea can replace the often used anaesthetic lozenges. Milk with honey or thyme tea can also alleviate the pain and make the use of painkillers easier.
Wraps with mashed potatoes can also be used to treat sore throats. Among the types of tea, chamomile tea, elderflower tea and lime blossom tea are considered to be harmless in addition to the types already mentioned. Green tea should only be drunk up to two cups per day because of the caffeine it contains.
Ginger tea should be consumed with caution because of its labor-promoting properties. Cold baths should not be taken too hot or too long. Here, a temperature of maximum 30°C and a time of maximum 15 minutes is considered acceptable.
The additives should be compatible with pregnancy, a commercial cold bath is not recommended. Among the homeopathic remedies the following medicines are permitted during pregnancy: kitchen onion, yellow jasmine, goldenseal root, dried pumpkin fruit and kitchen bell. Furthermore, Schüssler salts No.
3 (Ferrum Phosphoricum), No. 4 (Potassium Chloratum) and No. 6 (Potassium Sulfuricum) are recommended for the treatment of colds. Other alternative methods suitable for use are Bach flower therapy, acupuncture or foot reflexology.
