Rob (Houston) on 04/23/2006

To permanently cure most kinds of sore throats, you merely need to suck on a lemon. Use either one small lemon or a little more than one-half of a big lemon. Cut it into sections as you would an orange, and suck the juice out of each section. Try one more time an hour later if the sore throat still hasn't passed. If it's still sore after an hour after your second dose, you should strongly consider seeking medical assistance.

Lemon juice is very acidic, and can erode the enamel on your teeth, so I would recommend brushing your teeth soon afterwards. You can just drink lemon juice instead if you don't have an actual lemon handy. On one occasion I mixed about three-fourths of a cup of lemon juice with about 2 cups of water and gulping that down seemed to work just as well. After reading some of the other cures posted here, it occurred to me that gargling with a lemon juice / water mixture might have been a good idea. Merely having a glass of lemonade or two doesn't seem to work very well--I suppose because it doesn't have enough lemon juice in it. I feel that the idea is to assault your throat with the acidity of the lemon juice, and if you get enough down there at one time, the soreness just stops. I am no doctor, but I have not yet had a sore throat for the last 20 years or so that a lemon didn't permanently cure.