Adventures in Home Remedies

This doesn't really fit in anywhere on the list, but I feel I should share it, if only to give people a good laugh. I will warn you, however, due to graphic and disgusting content, reader discretion is advised. Here is my journey into the land of home remedies.

Immediately following the power outage disaster I started to get those horrible little symptoms that let you know you're getting a cold. I woke up on my first day back to work feeling sluggish and congested, with a pretty nasty cough. Off I trudged to work, however. As the day progressed I felt worse and worse, so I was very happy to get home and relax. And then the power went out again. Fortunately this time it wasn't out for very long, but I didn't want to go to bed until it was back. When I finally got to bed at about 1am, breathing was a real challenge. Between 1 and 5:30 I basically just dozed. Twice I woke up because I'd stopped breathing. So when my alarm went off at 6:50 I called in sick and went back to sleep. 

Now, I'm not a delicate flower at the best of times. I'm messy and often very disorganized. I'm always in a rush because I'm usually running late. And when I'm sick I'm even worse. All I want to do is cuddle up on the couch with my blankie and do nothing. I don't clean up anything until I feel better. There will be piles of kleenex everywhere. There will be dirty dishes on every flat surface. If I cook anything the dirty utensils will remain on the counter and it's rare that anything makes it to the garbage can. I could apologize, but to who? I live alone. Thankfully.

I've never been one to go to the doctor every time I'm sick. I basically only go to the doctor if I have something serious that I can't shake. I'm also not a huge fan of using medication when I'm sick. I find it only temporarily relieves the symptoms and seems to make my cold last longer. So that leaves either doing nothing, or going with a more natural approach. I'm not a big fan of just letting things run their course, so I decided to spend my day testing some home remedies. Some worked, some didn't. Some I'd recommend, others were just plain gross. I warn you, it's about to get real. Real disgusting.

Home Remedy #1- Vaporub and socks to bed

Raynaud's Syndrome. Yay.

This one grossed my mom out. Not because I had to slather vaporub on my feet, but because I had to wear socks to bed. She's weird like that. I wear socks to bed most nights from October to May because I have Raynaud's Syndrome, which causes the tips of my fingers and toes to go numb and turn white if I get cold, even slightly cold. I usually kick the socks off in the night, but if my feet are cold when I go to bed, I don't sleep. So there, Mom.


For this remedy you are supposed to slather vaporub on the bottoms of your feet, put on some socks and go to sleep. They say that different areas of your feet correlate with different areas of your body and I think the point of this remedy is for the vaporub to affect the sinus area. So I decided to give it a shot.

I didn't personally have any vaporub, but my parents did. It's my dad's go-to when he's sick, and anytime he hears me say I'm not feeling well he tells me to rub on the vaporub. So, like a good daughter/person desperate to feel better, I slapped a pile of vaporub on my feet, and for good measure also rubbed my chest, sinuses and under my nose.







Verdict: Not really sure. I was still pretty congested and phlegmy, but when I skipped a night I DID feel more congested the next day. I'd do it again.

Home Remedy #2- Turmeric and pepper milk

This one was a bit of a gamble. I found it online and the instructions admitted that it was a bit difficult to stomach, but I figured it was worth a shot. 

Now, look at this picture. It doesn't look dangerous. It looks kind of fun. Yellow milk? That's crazy! And it was a pretty simple recipe. One cup of milk, warmed as hot as you could stand, to which you add 1 teaspoon of turmeric, 2 teaspoons of black pepper and honey to taste. Turmeric showed up frequently in home remedies and is supposed to be a wonder food. Honey is too, in its raw, unpasteurized form. Sadly, it's hard to get that in the small town in which I live, so I had to go with the regular kind. I didn't think about the measurements too closely, which I should have, in retrospect. This remedy is supposed to help with itchy throat and cough, but I don't think I actually ingested enough for it to work.



First of all, the creamy looking picture on the right does not show the ominous black pepper that floated aimlessly through the glass. The fact that there was twice as much black pepper as turmeric should have been a warning to me, but I wasn't thinking clearly. All those cold germs in my head clearly affected my judgement. So, I mixed it all up and took a drink. And it wasn't too bad. Until the pepper jumped up and roundhouse kicked me in the face. Ten minutes later I took a second drink. PEPPERED!! And then my stomach started to feel weird. Ten minutes later I took my third and last drink, as my stomach took a huge lurch.

Verdict: No. Never. Horrible. Do. Not. Try. EVER.

Home Remedy #3- Hot water with lemon and honey

This one was pretty straight forward. Once again, honey is beneficial for colds, and so are lemons (probably at least partly because of the vitamin C). There is a debate as to whether hot beverages in general are good for colds, but nothing really makes you feel better than a nice, hot drink when you're feeling icky. All I did for this was juice a lemon (about 2 tablespoons seems to be the best amount), put it in a mug, fill the mug with boiling water and then add honey until it tasted sweet enough for my liking. It was delicious. Like Neocitran without the medicine taste.

Verdict: I like to think it helped. It warmed me up and helped my throat. I'll definitely keep drinking this one, even when I'm not sick.

Home Remedy #4- Steam

Here is where is gets gross. Almost embarrassingly so. If you're squeamish, don't read this paragraph. So, steam. Boil a kettle, pour the water in a bowl (you can add a few things if you want), put a towel over your head and lean over the bowl. I added some apple cider vinegar and honey to mine. This method is designed to loosen up...well, snot, if I'm being honest. So, leaning over a bowl of steaming water when you have a runny nose leads to...dripping snot into the bowl. After a few minutes of this I just decided to go for it. I breathed in the steam and blew out. Yup, I blew my nose into a bowl. It looked disgusting, but I felt MUCH better after I did. My nose was so sore from kleenex that this was such a nice change. I was able to breathe through both nostrils for the first time in days. But this isn't the worst part of the story.

As previously mentioned, I am a slob when I'm sick. So instead of taking the bowl to the bathroom and dumping it I put a cover on it and sat it on the coffee table.  But not until I'd poured the remnants of the turmeric pepper milk into it. I like to condense my mess at least. By this time the pepper and turmeric had settled into a glob of sludge on the bottom of the mug. And when you pour milk into hot water it curdles. So there was that. Soon enough, my mother came down to check on me. And when she saw the covered bowl on the table she picked it up to see what it was. And I shrieked at her. Repeatedly, until she put it down. She asked what it was and when I told her she asked me why. My answer, sick, cranky and PMSing, was "Because". Fortunately, she left it at that and accepted my apology for yelling like a fishwife at her. 

Verdict: This worked really well. I will definitely do it again. But I will clean up immediately. Sorry, Mom. 

Home Remedy #5- Chicken Noodle Soup

Technically, it was turkey soup. Because what else do you use when you've cooked 2 turkeys in one week? So frozen turkey it was. So, the soup. Chicken soup is the general go-to when people are feeling sick. And while watching an episode of Dr. Oz (which I never do because I disagree with a lot of his advice), I found out that there actually IS some validity to the claims of the benefits of chicken soup. Here are the recommendations the show made to make your chicken soup better, followed by what I found out about the truth of the claims.



1. Use dark meat- Most people avoid it because it has a high fat content and more calories, but dark meat actually has more nutritional value than white meat, and 2/3 of the fat in dark meat is unsaturated fat. That's the good fat and it helps you stay fuller longer. Dark meat is also higher in B vitamins, zinc, iron and selenium (and antioxidant), as well as myoglobin, which sends oxygen to your muscles when you're exercising. Not that that is horribly useful when you're laying on the couch moaning, but hey, it can't hurt, right? Here's a link to some more useful info on dark meat.

Dark meat vs white meat

2. Oregano- Oregano has Omega-3s, antioxidants, vitamin K and is a natural antibacterial agent. So apparently it kicks that little cold germ's butt.

3. Drinking broth from the bowl- I guess this goes along with the hot beverages thing. Apparently, hot beverages and soup increase the nasal mucus velocity, which basically means it makes your nose run faster. Yummy. Maybe that's why my steam bowl was so effective...

And so I made a quick soup. Same recipe I usually use, except I cheated and used some chicken broth from Epicure instead of making my own. Lots of turkey, mostly dark meat, celery, carrots, potatoes, noodles and a LOT of oregano. It was yummy, and was pretty much the only thing I ate for 4 days. 

Verdict: Not sure. I think it worked. I didn't stay sick for as long as I usually do. And the soup tasted good, so I'd definitely make it again.

Home Remedy #6- Sleep

Not to state the obvious, but sleep is very important. Your body heals itself while you sleep. Sleep is one of my favourite things and I love a good nap from time to time. A quick, half hour cat nap that is. Not the 2 hour coma from which you awake to confusion over where you are, who you are and what century it is. This was highly touted as a good way to combat illness, so obviously I did as I was told. I am convinced that this helped. I am fortunate enough to be the only one I have to take care of. I have no kids, so I know this isn't as doable for everyone as it was for me, but I really believe that it helped.

Verdict: This absolutely worked. Probably better than any of the other things.

So there we have it. Using these home remedies I was able to kick a pretty nasty cold in about 4 days (for the most part). A week later a still have a bit of a cough and some minor congestion, but it's manageable. I did also take 2 ibuprofen before bed on 2 of the 4 nights because I had splitting headaches. I will definitely continue to use most of these remedies on future colds. I hope I didn't disgust you all too much, and hopefully you'll find something that works for you.