10 Cold and Flu Home Remedies

Yesterday I felt I was catching a cold that my kids had and did the peroxide in the ears remedy. I poured 3% into the cap and poured from the cap into one ear. Wow! Sent a shiver down the spine when it hits! Waited a few mins, then poured into the other ear. I can't believe it but I felt better within the hour and today back to normal.

I am fairly new to natural remedies but I am getting a lot of good information on this site and others. I have always suffered from colds that very often turn into horrible sinus infections. These occasionally turned into bronchitis and even pneumonia in the past from infected post-nasal drip. The nasal congestion is unbearable, severe and very painful, the whole head is affected and sleeping is impossible. Needless to say I am petrified of getting colds. Well, I just felt another one coming on a few days ago, but this time I beat it. I spent one day miserably congested and unable to breathe - the second day I made a tea with organic ingredients only, as follows:

• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1tsp ground ginger
• 1tsp black pepper
• 1tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp honey

Boil one cup of water, add turmeric and ginger, let steep for a few minutes, add pepper, lemon and honey then strain the tea into a mug and drink it.

After I drank, I could feel a little change in the congestion, it was subtle. It would lessen, then come back. So I was discouraged, but then I fell asleep for a while and when I woke up I was completely decongested and could breathe freely thru my nose! That was 3 days ago, I have been drinking one cup a day and the cold is 95% better! This to me is nothing short than a miracle because I know the misery I can experience with my sinuses. I will continue for the next few days just in case, and as needed if symptoms come back. But in the meantime I am thrilled that it did not progress and make my life hell for weeks. Now I feel have a defense against this condition. Please give it a try, it may work for you as well.

God bless.

Okay - I have another recipe for colds and immune support. I am so excited when I find a way to get goodies like fresh ginger and garlic into recipes that actually taste amazing. My husband and I LOVED this one. I think I will be making it often this fall. And it is super simple!

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Blend:

• 1 14 ounce can pumpkin
• 1 14 ounce can coconut milk
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 ¼ teaspoons sea salt
• ¾ teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 Tablespoon fresh ginger root

Blend in vitamix (or regular blender if you don't have one).
Heat on stove until hot. Or put in a crock pot on low for 2 hours.

~Mama to Many~

MtM, last summer I was making lemonade with honey and it took forever to melt the honey by stirring. Now I see how to do it: melt it in a little hot water!! Thank you!!

We have a bit of a summer cold going around. I offered one child some hot vinegar tea but no one wants a hot drink when it is hot outside. So off to the kitchen to make a healing summer cold drink.

• 1 tablespoon of raw honey
• 1 ounce of hot water to dissolve the honey
• 3 ounces of cold water
• juice of 1 lime
• ice

Dissolve honey in hot water. Add cold water, lime juice and ice. Mix. Enjoy!
My kids loved this drink. It tastes like limeaid.

Son: Mommy, what is in this?

Mommy: Lime juice, honey, water

Son: What in this is good for a cold?

Mommy: Lime juice, honey, water

Lime has vitamin C, other nutrients and is alkalizing.

Honey is antiviral and antibacterial.

Water is hydrating.

So there you have it. A yummy drink for when you are sick or when you are not! :)

~Mama to Many~

I have had a cold and relapse 3 times including strep throat. Went to doctors to get rid of that. Cold was coming on again and I put Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV), cayenne pepper, baking soda and I feel great. Will keep sipping ACV with Soda and cayenne ...determined to get rid of this

Timh,

The gold color indicates that some of the ionic silver is reduced to colloidal silver and or possibly closer to 40 to 50 ppm. A higher ppm will generally be darker. When I make 320 ppm batches, they look like dark coffee after full reduction.

Similar to this color on the left:

http://www.cdn.sciencebuddies.org/Files/4691/6/colloidal-silver_img.jpg

When I dilute it to 40 ppm it turns to a light amber color similar to the second jar from the right..

A crystal clear ionic solution that looks like the distilled water that you started with would be ideal before reduction though.....similar to the jar on the far right side. After reduction, a colloidal silver color similar to crystal clear baby shampoo would indicate a nice particle size range that is likely to be very effective and in the 20 ppm area......a color and clarity similar to the middle jar.

If you cap it, the color may darken slightly and can vary depending on what you use to cap it. For me, clarity is important and should be as clear as the distilled water you start with no matter what type of silver you are making or ppm. The parts per million can be determined if you are using a "constant current" controlled generator based on the length of the run and the voltage used during the run along with the amperage. There are quite a few variables that can affect the quality and strenth of what you produce such as the depth of your cathode, the spacing between the cathode and anode, current, run time, voltage, the type of electrolyte you use, the stabilizer you use, the water temperature and whether you use stirring to name some of the variables.

As far as your shoulder infection, it seems to me that I remember reading in your posts that you have used DMSO? If so, have you ever used a combination of DMSO and iodine topically? I can't remember if you have mentioned doing this before and if so, how did it work for you? Sometimes, if it has been quite awhile since I used something effective, I forget about some things that have worked for me in the past.

Art

Art, back again after another ordeal, and on topic with infection in my left shoulder. This is a recurrence from about two months ago. My big Magnet applied for about an 1 hr for two or three days usually puts the infection back for months. This time it appears that my acidic condition once again took on radiation which worsened the situation dramatically, leaving the entire blood & body trying to defend against the potent infection. Two nights without LDN was a big mistake. More Magnet, Zapping, and Heat Pad have me temporarily stable but more needs to be done. I am considering heating C.S. and saturating a washcloth to be place on the shoulder, and try diffusing Ozone into the cloth, or adding DMSO.

I have always wondered if C.S. could be used in combo with synthetic antibiotics, so thanks for the info. Yes I make my own C.S. and to a lightly milky color but don't have a ppm gauge. In time it turns a golden color; is this bad? Mine is an open half-gallon mason jar in which I cook for about 3 hrs. The great thing about C.S. is that oxygen has an affinity to it just like Iron. The C.S. plus oxygen is way more potent than either alone. Try a few drops or up to a dropper of DMSO in a cup of C.S. and you will feel the difference as the combo of Silver, Sulfur, and Oxygen are fantastic.

Timh,

Yes, I find the ultrasonic humidifier quite effective and more than capable of delivering an effective dose in just minutes. The oral method is great for going after blood born pathogens, but colloidal silver needs to come into contact or "very close proximity" to pathogens in order to be effective so oral intake is not likely to be very effective for many respiratory issues, but it may be helpful in some cases where pathogens are increasing beyond the respiratory system in which case both methods applied at the same time may be a better option. One problem with an ultrasonic device is that it can cause CS to agglomerate so only small amounts at a time may be a useful thing to do and throw out whatever isn't used.

For people who are using antibiotics, but are having minimal effect or the effects are diminishing, there are quite a few studies suggesting that CS may have synergy with certain broad spectrum antibiotics and in some cases may reverse "resistance" that has developed to a specific antibiotic. Here is a link to an abstract of this type of study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26970828

Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces. 2016 Jun 1;142:392-9. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2016.03.007. Epub 2016 Mar 4.

Silver nanoparticles strongly enhance and restore bactericidal activity of inactive antibiotics against multiresistant Enterobacteriaceae.

Panáček A1, Smékalová M2, VečeTMová R3, Bogdanová K3, Röderová M3, KoláTM M3, Kilianová M2, Hradilová Š2, Froning JP2, Havrdová M4, Prucek R2, ZboTMil R2, Kvítek L2.

Abstract

Bacterial resistance to conventional antibiotics is currently one of the most important healthcare issues, and has serious negative impacts on medical practice. This study presents a potential solution to this problem, using the strong synergistic effects of antibiotics combined with silver nanoparticles (NPs). Silver NPs inhibit bacterial growth via a multilevel mode of antibacterial action at concentrations ranging from a few ppm to tens of ppm. Silver NPs strongly enhanced antibacterial activity against multiresistant, β-lactamase and carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae when combined with the following antibiotics: cefotaxime, ceftazidime, meropenem, ciprofloxacin and gentamicin. All the antibiotics, when combined with silver NPs, showed enhanced antibacterial activity at concentrations far below the minimum inhibitory concentrations (tenths to hundredths of one ppm) of individual antibiotics and silver NPs. The enhanced activity of antibiotics combined with silver NPs, especially meropenem, was weaker against non-resistant bacteria than against resistant bacteria. The double disk synergy test showed that bacteria produced no β-lactamase when treated with antibiotics combined with silver NPs. Low silver concentrations were required for effective enhancement of antibacterial activity against multiresistant bacteria. These low silver concentrations showed no cytotoxic effect towards mammalian cells, an important feature for potential medical applications.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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The following abstract suggests that similar synergistic effects are likely in animals as well:

Vet J. 2016 Mar;209:174-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2015.10.032. Epub 2015 Oct 22.

Enhanced antibacterial effect of antibiotics in combination with silver nanoparticles against animal pathogens.

Smekalova M1, Aragon V2, Panacek A3, Prucek R1, Zboril R1, Kvitek L1.

Author information

Abstract

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a serious health risk in both human and veterinary medicine. Several studies have shown that silvernanoparticles (AgNPs) exert a high level of antibacterial activity against antibiotic resistant strains in humans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antibacterial effects of a combined therapy of AgNPs and antibiotics against veterinary bacteria that show resistance to antibiotics. A microdilution checkerboard method was used to determine the minimal inhibitory concentrations of both types of antimicrobials, alone and in combination. The fractional inhibitory concentration index was calculated and used to classify observed collective antibacterial activity as synergistic, additive (only the sum of separate effects of drugs), indifferent (no effect) or antagonistic. From the 40 performed tests, seven were synergistic, 17 additive and 16 indifferent. None of the tested combinations showed an antagonistic effect. The majority of synergistic effects were observed for combinations of AgNPs given together with gentamicin, but the highest enhancement of antibacterial activity was found with combined therapy together with penicillin G against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. A. pleuropneumoniae and Pasteurella multocida originally resistant to amoxycillin, gentamicin and colistin were sensitive to these antibiotics when combined with AgNPs. The study shows that AgNPs have potential as adjuvants for the treatment of animal bacterial diseases.

Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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I am curious as to what type of colloidal silver you are using and if you are making it or buying it? What color if any could you compare it to? Is the CS crystal clear even if it has color? How many parts per million is it? Is it capped?

Thank you!

Art

Chill the C.S. first, then ozonate and drink for best results. But back to nebulization or humidification like you do. Lately my circulation is going bad as of the chronic infection getting worse. I take a dose of Lipo-C and 500mg Lysine and occasional Hawthorn, BUT I seem to be getting best results nebulizing C.S. This method must deliver directly to the infection which clings to the artery walls. Lungs, nose, throat, arteries, all must benefit from the C.S. vapors.

Hi Timh,

I have not experimented with CS and lecithin or glycine. The CS I make is capped, so I think that will pose a problem with those two. The capped CS will withstand stomach acid easily, allowing the CS to reach the intestines where the capping agent is broken down and the CS can then do its thing. Try putting uncapped CS or ionic silver in a mixture of hydrochloric acid and salt to try and simulate the stomach and they do not fare very well. I have tried to do lypo experiments with a sonicator, but it was way too under powered and I eneded up with problem mixes that didn't hold together consistently or seperated in a relatively short period of time. I also could not tolerate the taste of the lecithin mixes so those experiments only lasted about a few weeks before I threw in the towel. The lecithin also seemed to be hard to clean up afterword......it's like it "clings" to everything!

Bottom line, I have no idea of what I actually made in terms of a "real lypo mix" or not. With ozone bubbling in CS, I would think you better be able to drink it down super duper fast!!

Art

Good observation, Art. I experience much the same. I have been drinking 2 cups?? concentration C.S. for several yrs to fight the chronic infections. I too have noticed an immediate improvement of symptoms nubulizing C.S. So this method is effective beyond killing mycoplasma in the lungs. Back to the oral; lately I have added one dropper of 99% DMSO to one cup C.S. with much better results. I have yet to experiment with C.S. absorption & utilization by adding maybe one spoon of Glycine and one spoon of Lecithin; maybe you can try this. Are you familiar with LET method of nutrition & drug delivery? The above recipe may be effective but may also need sonicating. You may also try Zapping fallowing the C.S. Bob Beck must have come to the same conclusion as you concerning oral administration, so he added zapping and swears this combo can kill all pathogens. You can also bubble ozone in a cup of C.S. but must drink quickly. H2O2 will stay in solution but I find it abrasive.

I consider myself to be a silver nanoparticle enthusiast and I make my own so I know what I am taking, but I have never had much luck fighting a cold by taking colloidal silver orally at any dose up to a quart per day of 20 ppm colloidal silver nanoparticles, even when I took a quart per day for a month straight. In the middle to second half of that one month run, I eneded up catching a cold and it pretty much played out as colds usually do for me despite being primed with silver nanoparticles well before I caught it. The silver nanoparticles taken orally just did not do much to fight the cold that I could tell.

More recently I have switched to using an ultrasonic humidifier for short durations several times per day inhaling directly near the output port. I chose the ultrasonic humidifier because it delivers a considerable amount of silver nanoparticles directly to the areas that are most affected by a cold in an amount that is effective and probably quite a bit more so than a nebulizer can deliver in the same amount of time. This is important because of the huge surface area of the lungs which is said to be 80~100 square meters or about the size of half a tennis court. A nebulizer will take a lot longer to deliver what the humidifier can deliver in minutes and because of that huge lung surface area, that is a very important point.

https://www.reference.com/science/surface-area-human-lungs-ffc6ae1756c2f2e

If I start at the first hint of a cold, the symptoms have gone within 24 hours or less. If I am unable to start right away, the cold is usually gone in about three days or less and symptoms are greatly reduced from what I have come to expect as my norm. Normally if I don't try to stop a cold, it drags on for weeks and often times settles into my chest in which case I have gotten a cough that lasted over a year and that has happened at least 4 times that I can remember. So as far as oral silver nanoparticles for a cold......not effective for me, but delivered via an ultrasonic humidifier......A+.

I only put a small amount of 40 ppm silver nanoparticles (about 4 ounces) in the humidifier and breathe the vapor in deeply as it comes from the output port of the humidifier for about 7 minutes three times during the day for a total of about 21 minutes per day. Usually symptoms are gone the first day, but I might continue for one day after the symptoms have gone. Throw away whatever is left in the humidifier when I am done.

In any case, it is the ultasonic humidifier that makes all the difference in the world for me when using silver nanoparticles to fight a cold. Just 4 ounces compared to quarts taken orally that had little to no impact on my cold.

Art

Onion is such a simple cure, but people don't like the smell...Well boo hoo, you must not be very sick then!

Over the weekend I could tell I was starting to get a head cold. Because I really hate having a stuffy nose, I decided to attack that issue first and foremost. In 24 hours I used the neti pot 4-5 times. I boiled water and cooled it to warm. I added a capful of hydrogen peroxide and 1/4 teaspoon sea salt to the warm water in the neti pot.

I also used peroxide in my ears several times and had a mug or two of hot vinegar tea. (Apple cider vinegar, honey and hot water.)

The cold completely fizzled out. I think the neti pot nipped the whole thing in the bud.

Ideally for a cold I would have taken extra vitamin C, zinc and gotten more rest. But I had a house guest, a busy weekend and probably had less sleep than normal.

The neti pot takes a bit of getting used to, but the wonderful feeling of clean sinuses makes me want to use it.

Always boil and cool water (or used distilled water) when using the neti pot to avoid risks of bacteria and parasites in the water causing trouble much worse than a cold!

~Mama to Many~

Works great for me. Have used this remedy two times in the past 3 months. If only I could convince my wife to try it on herself and our son.

I think everyone who has had a problem with dizzy is because they didn't lay down when they did this. The inner ear helps your balance, thats why you feel dizzy.

Of course , misuse of 35% food grade hydrogen peroxide can be dangerous. Use 1 drop Hp and 11 drops Distilled water to make 3% . Then it safe to use.

The same happened to me. I tried H2O2 in the ears and the next morning woke up to some distressing vertigo. Room would spin every time I lay on my side. I swabbed my ear out the evening after and it got better. Since I've had many colds in my life, and this is the first time trying hydrogen peroxide in the ears, I'm inclined to think it's the hydrogen peroxide that caused the vertigo. It may have something to do with the temperature of the fluid, as another poster suggested.

There are a lot of good natural remedies that work all depending on when the supplement was taken, how long was the person sick, and was the person consistent in taking the supplement.

I am facing symptoms I always go to my medicine cabinet and pull out the pure Colloidal Silver - 4000 PPM after a few days, my symptoms are drastically reduced if not gone.

Sometimes when I delay taking the supplement it gives the viruses plenty of time increase in numbers, what I do then is take a combination of Colloidal Silver and Colloidal Zinc 4000 PPM (Zinc has been used in the past to treat flu-like symptoms) and usually within 3 day I am completely free of any symptoms at all.

Everyone hates a cold! My Czech wife makes the perfect cure, but it must be taken daily, don't worry, it's delicious!

I THINK this is the recipe, but fresh, raw, ONLY organic garlic is your cure. All ingredients must be organic and fresh as possible. Ours are picked fresh from our allotment.

Boil up a big pot for a soup, add potatoes, onions etc. The most important bit is 7 to 8 cloves of raw garlic right at the end; don't cook the garlic! Must be as raw as possible.

I had full on flu like symptoms one day, had 2 helpings of soup in a day and the next morning I felt brand new! However, a day or 2 without more soup and the cold starts to return, so I think a week of garlic soup for lunch/ dinner should do the trick.

A few years ago I believed that drinking hot tea with lemon juice and honey will cure my cold, sore throat and phlegm congestion. It failed every time I tried it. I wish I had known about ACV, cayenne pepper and ginger at the time. I believe that cinnamon, black pepper would also work, as well as other warming and decongesting herbs.

For me, one of the most miserable aspects of a cold is the nasal congestion that blocks the taste buds and causes endless nose-blowing. This time, I took a clove of garlic, broke it into small chunks, and put a chunk up into each nostril. Leave it there as long as you can stand it, it will probably prompt you to sneeze eventually, after a few minutes. Do this repeatedly and your congestion will be gone in a day. Also, chew a little garlic all day and keep a peeled glove in your mouth to suck on. This, plus a dose of apple cider vinegar in water 4 times a day, got rid of 90% of my cold symptoms in 24 hrs.

Garlic is wonderful as a preventative method for staving off common cold. When your flatmate is coughing and sneezing and you start feeling this funny itchiness in your nose, peel a garlic clove and press it so that volatile oils could evaporate. Keep it near your bed - viruses/ bacteria will not bother you.

I just came back from a trip and I felt a cold coming on, my whole body was aching and I had a sore throat so I started drinking and gurgling with cayenne pepper, approx. teaspoon in a cup of hot boiling water, a very small amount of black pepper and sipped it throughout the day, and every now and then gurgled the drink and spat out. Make sure to drink plenty of liquids, otherwise the hotness of the chile might cause stomach problems and you will be running to the toilet. I am sure that the hot chili helped kill all the germs and viruses, and didn't give a chance for the cold to settle in. By the following day, I felt much better and the cold had completely gone away, although you have to continue this regime for an extra day until completely well. You should take hot chili as soon as you feel a cold coming on and try to catch it while it is on track before it develops into a heavy cold.

FYI: There are several kinds of zinc that you can take for colds. But only two kinds of zinc are actually effective against colds.

The best kind is zinc acetate. It's the only kind of zinc that consistently slashes the duration of a cold in half. Zinc gluconate was the second best choice, but zinc acetate worked much better.

None of the other kinds of zinc were effective at fighting colds.

Why are zinc acetate and zinc gluconate effective and other kinds aren't? Because they both release zinc in the form of a positively charged ion. The ionic form is what makes the difference in whether zinc can cure your cold or not.

They discovered that zinc acetate was best. Zinc acetate releases 100% of the zinc in an ionic form. Zinc gluconate was second best. It only releases 70% of its zinc in the ionic form.

The researchers also found that you need at least 75 mg of zinc acetate a day to fight colds. And finally, they found that zinc is only effective when cold viruses are exposed to zinc for at least 20 minutes at a time.

Since zinc needs 20 minutes of exposure to fight colds? pills, syrups, or sprays simply won't work. You need slow-dissolving lozenges that release the zinc right where the viruses are.

Last week I was coming down with a head cold. Constant sneezing and that "run down" feeling. I was sort of ignoring it because I was busy. So by bedtime I felt awful. I felt like I had the flu (aches and terrible sinus headache) and had a low grade fever. I really didn't have time to be sick so I got really aggressive with colloidal silver and vitamin C. I would take the C by the gram frequently during the day.

With the silver, I was practising Dave's method - in the nose, in the ears, gargle and guzzle! Every few waking hours I would gargle and swallow a couple of Tablespoons of CS. Then I put some into the palm of my hand and snorted it up into each nostril until I could feel the sting. (I would call it "burn." Really felt awful but I was encouraged that it was helping. I did notice the burn was less intense if I repeated the process pretty soon afterwards.) At night when I felt too bad to get out of bed, but kept a bottle of CS by the bed. If I woke up I put some in my ears, in my mouth and into my nose with an eyedropper. I didn't even had to sit up. It was less intense but it was better than nothing.

I felt a good bit better in 24 hours. In 48 hours I felt almost normal. I am continuing the routine for a few more days just in case.

Thanks Dave for all your patient and encouraging posting on the process. I sometimes need to read and study something a number of times before trying it myself. I have had colloidal silver in my house for years and used it here and there during that time. Now I find it is in use daily, it seems.

And thanks everyone for posting your stories. The details and variations are so helpful! Jeanne's recent story of healing a sore throat with silver was in my mind as I was doing this.

Have a super day! ~Mama to Many~

Dave,

Thanks a bunch. I will try it that way.

~Mama to Many~

Mary to Many,

The timing is not an issue if one uses the Colloidal Silver as an irrigation. Most colds begin in the sinus cavity. To learn the irrigation (Neti pot idea that Opra has propelled) is very effective. The neti pot is like a pouring cleanse. The idea with CS is to pour a teaspoon into palm of hand and sniff into both sinuses. If an infection is there one will definitely feel a stinging usually more on one side than the other.