Natural remedies for flu, cold, sore throat, etc.

If you have a really irritating cough and sore throat, don't rely on hot drinks because heat will aggravate the inflammation. If you have an inflamed joint, you use an ice pack, so if you have an inflamed throat and larynx, suck an ice cube and sip iced water.

"idea" "for" tut...

Fenning Fever Cure.......ohhhhh myyyyyyy evil stuff as you say....also seems to remember Fennings Little Healers...no idew what they were fore and they were in a little round tube tiny tablets.

Nearly 5 weeks now with this unpleasant lurgy so feeling no better have caved in and made a gp appt this afternoon.

Wilma I do like Friars balsam and I keep an old jug at the back of under the sink for steam inhalations containing this pleasant mild disinfectant.

I agree with Farview about salt water. Please don't make the solution too strong as it will burn the delicate mucous membrane. There is a trick of sucking slightly salted water up the nostrils and down the back of the throat that helps to disinfect the area. Don't sniff though as that makes it go up the sinus.

Throat..salt water gargle! Echinacea all through winter..and if just a cold,carry on as normal and just work it off?

I was just reading about sulphur tablets last week and how commonly they were used, yet there's no proof that they can do anything at all.

I really only have one approach and that's Paracetamol and sleep.

If my ears are bad, I have an inhalation cup thingy that I use instead of holding my head under a towel over a bowl of boiled water. When I was still at home my Mum added Friar's Balsam, but these days I just use a teaspoon of vick.

If I get a full blown cold I slather Vaseline on the end of my nose and use really soft tissues.

Sambucol.
It's elderberry, and you can make elderberry syrup or vinegar if you have any in your garden, but not now, unfortunately.

I was wondering about that, annsixty. I imagined you cutting the top off the turnip and hollowing it out.

The turnip was thinly sliced, I missed that bit out.

NotTooOld my remedy which came from our milklady ( the D of the farmer who the unpasteurized milk came from) was a turnip covered in brown sugar and the syrup which resulted taken as a cough syrup.
Sore throats were treated with sugar beaten with sugar and then with vinegar added to make a paste. It was so delicious I used to invent sore throats just to be given it.
Summer ailments were treated with sulphur tablets from the chemist, they were awful, but the ultimate was Fennings Fever Cure which was formulated by the devil himself and one dose cured all as you didn't want a second.
At my advanced age I find most things are cured by going to bed with a larger whisky, brown sugar and hot water with 2 paracetamol. Cures all my ills..

A very hot drink (of tea,coffee, anything) taken as soon as I notice the first signs of a cold. As I drink it, I try to hold the hot liquid in my throat for a few seconds before swallowing. I've found that if I do this early enough, it often seems to stop the cold from developing.

When we were kids my mum used to chop up an onion, sprinkle brown sugar over it and leave it aside until the liquid from the onion seeped into the sugar, then she'd give us the liquid on a spoon for coughs and colds. Can't remember if it worked but we used to love it.

Fresh ginger, grated, infused in boiling water for five minutes or so, and then strained and drunk with honey added, and lemon juice if you like it, but I don’t. But my favourite go to for a cold is homemade chicken broth, made from a chicken carcass and any left over meat, and vegetables, and it seems to work for me. As for flu, I have only had it once and could not eat or drink anything - I just wanted to die!