It is almost the end of November and we just had a taste of the winter, a few days ago. This may seem lucky for those of us who don’t like cold. But, the changes in temperatures allow the spread of the germs causing us different types of colds and flu. As we perfectly know, there is no cure for cold or flu – they should go by itself in a week. They are caused by viruses and as we perfectly know, antibiotics will not work on viruses. Antibiotics are being occasionally prescribed in cold cases as a prevention from bacterial infection, which may come secondary, after the body has been exhausted by the viral infection. But, what the antibiotic will do is killing some “good bacteria” while not sure there is “bad bacteria” to kill. This way the balance will be destroyed, the immunity lowered further and, guess what? Your illness will last longer and will leave you with very compromised immunity. As for bacteria, they got clever after having been attacked systematically with antibiotics for the past forty years, they developed high tolerance or even resistance to them. What follows is: known antibiotics become low efficient or non-efficient and higher dose or a stronger antibiotic is needed. This adds to the vicious circle of: lowering immunity – getting sick again – lowering immunity – getting sick again.

So, what to do when we feel a cold/flu has attacked us?

Best thing is to go to bed for a few days and keep yourselves warm and well hydrated. Hot herbal teas are the best at this time: Thyme, Camomile, Peppermint, to mention but a few. (See my July entry: How to cope with summer colds/flu – part 1) All these you can get in the supermarket, as well as the Ginger and Lemon. Ginger tea is the best when home-made from a few slices of peeled ginger root, covered with boiling water for a while. When its temperature gets good enough for drinking, add a few drops of lemon. In case your cold/flu hasn’t given you loose digestion, you can add a few spoons of honey before the lemon. Honey in hot herbal tea has been long known for its healing properties. So in colds season, always keep a jar of good honey in your cupboard. Manuka honey is said to be very healing. It’s price in Hollands and Barretts is much higher than the acacia honey in Sainsbury’s. But knowing how little real honey is in the jar from Sainsbury’s we are much better off investing in a manuka honey jar and using it sparingly (a spoon a day) for enhancing our immunity. By the way, a spoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water last thing in the evening before bed is known to help sleep and to give energy the next morning (unless you are diabetic).

When you first start feeling shivers and fever, go home straight from work and have a hot bath or shower (not too close to bed- time as heat could make you restless). Then you rub all over your body some vodka with a few drops of aroma essence Lavender and or Tea tree in it. (see my first entry: Three essential oils every home needs). Prepare a spare pair of pyjamas next to your bed, have a hot herbal tea and go in bed in human hours. You may well sweat all over and this is where the spare pyjamas come handy next to your bed, you change in it and then sleep well. In some cases, this may be enough to stop the cold from developing. Soaking your feet in hot salty water also can do the job.

But if you have missed this stage and the cold/flu is developing with some fever, sore throat, cough, headache and aches all over the body, this is the stage you are best off to stay in bed for a few days. Not only you will heal better, but you will stop the germs from spreading further. As I said at the beginning, you need to keep warm and hydrated. Appetite could be low, light food is recommendable, milk, cheese and heavy meats are to be avoided. Best is chicken soup. (See recipe in my entry: How to cope with summer colds/flu – part 1). If you can bring yourself to eat raw garlic and/or onions, this is the antibiotic for you.

For the pains and aches, the rub made of vodka with aromatherapy oil will do a very good job. The good thing is you can use it even when you have fever. Proper body massage is to wait for the time when the fever is gone.

I know very well that most Londoners will not be able to follow my advice about staying in bed and losing a few days from work, simply because they are afraid of taking sick days; the employers nowadays included your absence from work from sickness in the criteria of your performance at work. So you stuff yourselves with paracetamol and antibiotics and soldier it to work. Some of you will add a few more coffees to their usual daily ration in order to survive a stressful day at work. This will deprive you from enough sleep and will kick- start the vicious circle of feeling tired and sleepy at rising in the morning and perhaps again in the early afternoon, drinking increased amount of coffee to fight that, then feeling as awake as a vampire at night and not able to get enough sleep for the next day, and so forth and so forth. To these people I firmly recommend to “get lazy” during the weekend. Live life without a schedule, take it easy, but eat well, try to sleep well. Not taking coffee or any other stimulants (chocolate and alcohol included) will help. Stay in bed for as long as it feels right. This will give your body the chance to heal itself as much as it is possible. If you can book a treatment for the end of the week, this should be the only thing scheduled for your weekend. The rest is rest.

Of course, I case your cold continues for much longer than a week, you may need to take antibiotic, best prescribed by your GP.

People rely on antibiotics to give them a boost, so they would not lose time from work. But what you need to know is that in a long run, antibiotics weaken your immune system. If you keep taking them every time you get a cold (sometimes up to three times in one season), your body develops tolerance to them and at certain point antibiotics are not efficient enough and you have to either increase the dosage, change the medication or, just get very sick. Maybe that latter is good, because this way you will allow your body to get immune to the particular virus. But, these cold and flu viruses are so many, you get immune to one, another, different one, comes to attack you. What’s left for us to do then?

The well-known answer is: improve your general health and your immunity, adopt healthy, stress-free life-style (as much as it is possible in our dynamic modern time). Or at least, interrupt the vicious circle of your stressful with the means of: treatments, meditation, Reiki, yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Qi etc.

What treatments?

When thinking about treatments, please note: body treatments I offer are good before and after the fever stage of a cold. The best treatment for after a cold I can offer is Manual Lymphatic Drainage (read more details in my October entry: October is the month for breast cancer awareness). MLD will activate the flow of lymph, which could be impaired due to the large amount debris of the bugs your immune system has killed while fighting the cold/flu. A few needles in specific points in the ears will give a boost to the organs responsible for your detox. (Optional, no extra charge).

MLD is a must after a cold/flu even if you have taken antibiotics and this has made you think you are well now. Antibiotics kill microorganisms in your body and this allows Candida overgrowth, which in turn, contributes to clogging the lymphatic system and this way – impairing your immune system and making you an easy target for the next cold waiting for you round the corner. In fact, regular MLD treatments can be used as prophylactic by those who feel that they “cannot afford to get sick”.

All my other treatments are good for stress prophylactic by interrupting the stress circle, depending of people’s preferences and likes. (Press Treatments button on this site to view the descriptions of them all)

My combined treatment of Reflexology and ear acupuncture has shown very good results in people who are extremely toxic due to the reduced ability of their liver to detox them from the large amount of strong drugs (medicinal or illicit) they have been taking. The positive results make this treatment invaluable for everyone, but especially for people who are not suitable for body/abdominal treatment. It could be used in pregnancy on its own or in a combination with partial MLD. It is very suitable for cancer patients (as long as there are no tumours in the feet and the ears.