Just A Little Something - A Blog by Anita Bora
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog Roll
  • & Adventure">Travel & Adventure
  • Archives
  • Gallery
  • Categories
    • Art & Culture
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Films
      • Music
    • Featured
    • Personal
      • Feline Obsession
      • Hobbies
      • Humour
      • Living
        • Healthy Living
      • Misc
        • Mumbai Attacks
        • Q & A
        • Quiz
        • Tsunami disaster
        • Uncategorized
      • Projects
      • Rants
      • Work
    • Photography
    • Sports & Adventure
      • Cycling
      • Running
      • Sports
    • Tech
      • Blogs
      • DesiPundit
      • Technology
    • Travel
      • Alternative Lifestyles
      • India & Around
      • Nature & Wildlife
    • Wining & Dining
      • Eating Out
      • Restaurant Review
  • Subscribe via RSS

Home remedies for the common cold

May 29th, 2009  |  Published in Humour, Living, Personal  |  21 Comments

So as luck would have it, I came down with a cold on Tues­day night.

And with the Sun­feast around the cor­ner, you can imag­ine how frus­trat­ing that is for me. Any­way, I thought I would ask for some home-made recipes to cure a com­mon cold and I got some very inter­est­ing responses when I posted a request on Face­book which I thought of shar­ing with the wide world out there.

I mean, with all this valu­able advice on my fin­ger­tips, how could I keep it all to myself, right? Another run­ner friend sug­gested I post these together so we can have a man­ual, a ready reck­oner. Any time you think the snif­fles are com­ing along, please do feel free to use these tips.

(And of course, the stan­dard dis­claimer that if none of these work — then it’s not MY fault — applies :-)

Pavi­tra: “Try brandy with hot water, lemon, honey and a pinch of pep­per. It also tastes like heaven!“
I usu­ally have this con­coc­tion in the morn­ing, but with­out the pepper.

Arun­dati says: “Make a decoc­tion of 2 cups water, 1 tsp crushed pep­per, 3–4 laung, 3–4 cin­na­mon sticks, 1 inch piece gin­ger, dry is bet­ter but fresh will also do. Boil till it reduces to 1 cup, mix with a lit­tle honey and sip warm 3–4 times a day… if you cant drink it plain, add a few table­spoons of honey…“
This is what I am going to try through the day tomor­row!

“Alter­na­tively a few drops of euca­lyp­tus oil in a spoon of sugar at night time is also good.”

Vidya sug­gests mul­li­gatawny soup.
Sis made some yummy potato and leek soup the other day. I am not sure she’s mak­ing another soup any­time soon!

From Mon­ica: “Try this Ayurvedic thing called Sama­han that you get in med­ical stores — with hot water — 1 packet every 4 hours till sat­ur­day — if it doesn’t go down till Sat­ur­day evening, start using parac­eta­mol to supress the cold, so you can run a bit more comfortably.”

Syed has a novel idea. “You could run with the cold for a cause like “raise aware­ness about local and home­made recipes for cure of cold!“
I might have to con­sider this, if I don’t recover in time!

Hasina says that after “many honey gin­ger hot teas she just began suck­ing on ‘lim­cee’ from the phar­macy. With Vit C sup­ple­ment tabs.“
I have no idea what lim­cee is! Anyone?

Indrani sug­gests the Assamese rem­edy: “Rub hot mus­tard oil with gar­lic on your back and chest. Quick relief.“
Def­i­nitely try­ing that today. How could I for­get our very own remedy?

Lalitha says rum works.
I like!

And Donna has the fun­ni­est rem­edy of them all: “Rub vicks to the soles of your feet — wear socks and sleep. swear it works! Well by the time you would have tried all the above 15 reme­dies, you would be cured of all ail­ments!“
I am tuck­ing into bed with Vicks tonight :-)

And of course, if you have any sure-fire recov­ery recipes to share, please do add them to the comments!

Responses

Feed Trackback Address
  1. Shrinidhi Hande says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 3:08 pm (#)

    Its a good feel­ing to see lots of friends around will­ing to offer help (read: suggestions)

    I like Syed’s idea, but I hope you don’t get to imple­ment that.

    So much of advance in the field of med­i­cine and this one small thing we don’t have a cure.

    Wish you a speedy recovery.

  2. Stephanie Booth says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm (#)

    Basic: drink lots of water, get plenty of sleep, and insist on vit­a­min C (and make sure you eat well). That’ll put all your chances on your side.

    I usu­ally drink herbal tea (thyme, mainly). Parac­eta­mol or ibupro­fen will relieve the symptoms.

    I do nasal irri­ga­tion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_irrigation) reg­u­larly because it helps with my aller­gies — when I’m falling in I do it more often, upto 5–6 times a day if I have a stuffy nose. I’ve found that in really bad cases, adding a few nose drops to the irri­ga­tion water helps a lot.

    And vicks on the chest and throat before going to bed, of course.

    Good luck!

  3. sunshin3girl says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 3:47 pm (#)

    I like Lalitha’s advice the best. Please check if we can have it on the rocks? ;)

  4. sunshin3girl says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 3:50 pm (#)

    Oh, I am ready to believe Donna’s weird-sounding rem­edy because when I was first told that a drop of mus­tard oil rubbed into your navel can cure your dry skin, I laughed it off. So now, I know better.

  5. Archana says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 5:02 pm (#)

    So it looks like u’ve got your hands on almost all the reme­dies (Syed’s was an excep­tion though) :-)) How did you feel after that? Anyways,hope you feel much bet­ter so that you can run to the best of your abil­ity in Sunfeast..Best of luck Anita :-)

  6. samarth says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 5:42 pm (#)

    Have a hot bowl of south indian rasam.

  7. neha says:

    May 29th, 2009 at 6:40 pm (#)

    Ah — am down with an awful cold as well. So am try­ing var­i­ous things. And to be hon­est, am so tired that I don’t even feel like boil­ing some water. (wah.. wah wah.)

  8. Venky Krishnamoorthy says:

    May 30th, 2009 at 2:34 am (#)

    There is an old say­ing “Feed the cold and starve the fever”.

    Take lot’s of Vit C / Orange juice, plenty of rest and you should do allright.

  9. Pratima says:

    May 30th, 2009 at 9:49 am (#)

    Lim­cee is a 500g Vit C chew­able tablets..I use it reg­u­larly to boost up immu­nity against cold/cough etc..

    Nice set of tips! I’m def­i­nitely going to book­mark this page :)

  10. raahul says:

    May 31st, 2009 at 12:24 am (#)

    Hi Anita, I just feel like adding to the list :)

    Try crush­ing a gin­ger to extract its juice and then mix it with a table­spoon of honey.….have it first thing in the morning.….it works!! It cured me of my cold ear­lier this year :)

  11. Srikanth says:

    June 1st, 2009 at 11:24 pm (#)

    What a time I saw this post. Last two days I was down with cold.
    I went to liquor shop, but didnt know which brand of brandy to pick up and came back. (Never tried brandy)
    I took the Tulsi tea which I had at home, alter­na­tively, I pluck a few fresh tulsi leaves, and boil them with water and take that warm water fre­quently. and of course some parac­eta­mol for symp­to­matic relief.
    Gar­gle warm salt water if you have sore throat.

  12. jk says:

    June 4th, 2009 at 9:58 am (#)

    i sug­gest you visit a multi spe­cial­ity hos­pi­tal, and get the cold cured … cou­ple of scan­nings, blood test, x rays, antibi­otics .… and a lille geera water.., and you’ll be ok.

  13. Ann Dee says:

    June 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm (#)

    Baap re that was quite a bunch full of rem­edy recipes and I am glad I landed in the nick of time. My swim­ming classes begin tomor­row and I still have a sore throat and lit­tle fever on top of that.
    Pavitra’s brandy blend looks like the most pick-able. Indrani’s recipe also works. Just that your bed will smell of gar­lic next one week.
    All the best Anita…Get well soon!

  14. Anuradha says:

    June 4th, 2009 at 5:06 pm (#)

    For me just plain hot water sip­ping through the day also works…

  15. Yuva says:

    June 4th, 2009 at 8:38 pm (#)

    sleep.. sleep.. and sleep.. that always works for me.

  16. Just a little something » Another ready reckoner! says:

    July 18th, 2009 at 3:37 pm (#)

    […] So it was only May end/beginning of June that I was down with a cold and got these use­ful home reme­dies. I’ve barely got over that bout (or so it seems!) and I am down with a cold again. Gosh, how I hate them! […]

  17. shalini says:

    July 22nd, 2009 at 2:08 pm (#)

    Vit C tabs are good! What helps me a lot is a con­coc­tion of 2 cups of water, 1 inch of gin­ger, a dozen pep­per­corns and a few leaves of tulsi brewed together till it reduces by half. Add a spoon of ghee as a tarka and sip. It’s works really well for sore throats as well.

  18. Home Remedies says:

    October 2nd, 2009 at 8:36 am (#)

    Thanks for this! Some­times Herbal reme­dies are just the best way to go. Espe­cially w/cold sea­son upon us

  19. Home Remedies says:

    November 1st, 2009 at 10:58 pm (#)

    Reg­u­larly because it helps with my aller­gies — when I’m falling in I do it more often, upto 5–6 times a day if I have a stuffy nose. I’ve found that in really bad cases, adding a few nose drops to the irri­ga­tion water helps a lot.

  20. SJ says:

    January 24th, 2010 at 6:38 pm (#)

    1. Please try OLIVE LEAF EXTRACT

    2. Mix a few drops of Euca­lyp­tus oil with Olive oil and mas­sage entire feet thor­oughly with it, wear socks after.

  21. Sherrie from Neti Pot Newbie's Guide says:

    January 31st, 2011 at 2:59 am (#)

    Oooh, my favorite — home­made chicken noo­dle soup. For a cold, I don’t think any­thing feels bet­ter than REAL home­made soup, the kind that takes hours to make with fresh ingre­di­ents. The only prob­lem is get­ting some­one to make it for you. For just such an emer­gency, I try keep a pint of home­made soup in the freezer, but my hus­band always swipes it!

    I also agree with Stephanie. Nasal irri­ga­tion is a great way to clear con­ges­tion. The only prob­lem there is get­ting the guts to actu­ally try a neti pot, and to avoid mak­ing com­mon neti new­bie mis­takes — like omit­ting the salt. Ouch.

Leave a Response

About JALS

This web­site is main­tained by Anita Bora. If you want to know more, there’s a detailed page here. You’re wel­come to leave a com­ment. For any other queries, you can get in touch with me on anitabora5 at red­iff­mail dot com. I started blog­ging way back in 2001 and this blog doc­u­ments my trav­els and tra­vails through the years.

Recent Comments

  • bus book­ing commented on They couldn’t make my trip!
  • Mercy Math­ews commented on Memorable Moments of 2011
  • vinay commented on Whitefield gets a brand new dining place in Counter Culture
  • Suma Ramesh commented on A day out in Kolar
  • Md Masum 22 commented on Unpack, unfold and ride away!

Google Ads

Recent Posts

  • New year, new problems!
  • Memorable Moments of 2011
  • Unpack, unfold and ride away!
  • A Palacio by the River
  • Chai and conversations

Categories

Google Ads


Daily Mile

 

May 2009
M T W T F S S
« Apr   Jun »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Archives

Disclaimer

The opin­ions expressed on this blog are mine alone. If you want to reproduce/borrow any pic­tures or con­tent, please ask. anitabora5 at red­iff­mail dot com.

Tags

2011 bangalore bike biking bombay coorg critical mass cycle Cycling cycling bike critical mass cycling to work cylists dec 2009 diwali diyas Eating Out end of the year event festival flickr friends girls run go green gogreen go green go cycling green helloindia jan2010 leela hotel life monsoon ride motorbike mumbai new year wishes photographers Photography run runnergirlsindia Sports & Adventure TFN09 tfn 2009 tour of the nilgiris Travel trip yahoo!

©2012 Just a little something