Whatever works

Since taking on a vegetable and fruit binge regiment, our household seems to be hardier. However, nothing lasts forever, and Joe brought home some sort of illness from work last week. He had aches and chills, then a cold and cough combination. About a week later, my body gave up and decided to join in on the fun.

As usual, neither of us have any intention of visiting a doctor. Joe's ailing enters its second week and he relies solely on our single box of Contac Complete, of which, only the limited supply of Nighttime pills provide any relief.

I have decided to take the opportunity to explore alternative methods of self healing.

Alcohol - I, once, successfully made a cold disappear after an evening of beer drinking. Ever since that single occurence, I have been unable to duplicate the results. Mostly, when I drink alcohol, my cold gets worse because I become dehydrated, but in an alcohol induced haze, at least I become indifferent to how terrible I feel.

Junk Food - Greasy food definitely makes any illness worse by adding vomiting and diarrhea to the list of symptoms. But, what about sweets? I stuffed myself with turkish delights (from Turkey) and a few chocolate chip cookies last night. This morning, no improvement. Bonus: no weight gain either; my sweets binge appears to have made up for whatever weight loss I might have suffered otherwise...in back fat.

Echinacea - I have read various reports debunking echinacea as a natural cold remedy, which I am prone to believe because herbal remedies don't go with my wardrobe. However, when my co-worker offered me echinacea tea, I couldn't resist. As of this moment, it appears to have worked. My throat no longer feels scratchy, sore or flemy, and my nose is no longer runny. Admittedly, my cold symptoms were just beginning, so my immune system might just have rallied itself. Until the results can be duplicated, consider them unscientific...then generalize that assessment to this entire exercise.