Illness is a Great Teacher

This week our family has battled the worst head cold we’ve ever had but in the throes of body aches and mucus production, I was able to see what preparations we made that made things easier and identify some things that we need to put into place for future illnesses. As always, I try to share what I learn so that you can take my information and make changes as needed for your family.

• We naturally are trained to grab the humidifier and crank it up anytime we feel even remotely sick, but there are some Eastern medical beliefs out there on the benefits of cool moist air. If you find that the warm moist air doesn’t improve or in fact worsens the symptoms, try purchasing yourself cool air humidifier. You don’t even need to buy a humidifier, just jump in a hot shower and see if your breathing improves. You can even purchase dissolving essential oil salt disks that you can toss at your feet to dissolve in the hot water.
• The very beginning of illness can easily appear like severe allergies, so be sure to have a whole variety of medications on hand going from hay fever to common colds to full on flu. I always recommend having homeopathic, herbal and manufactured varieties on hand because you don’t always have to use the strongest stuff first.
• Ice and heat packs are your friend! Frequently, with some headaches or sinus troubles you can alleviate discomfort faster with using an ice pack rather than a drug so keep both these on hand, not only for sickness but for obvious kid boo-boos. You can still even today purchase the old hot water bottle at most pharmacies in town. In a pinch, I’ve taken a Ball canning jar, stuffed a kitchen towel inside and filled it with the hottest water, then closed it up tightly and used it as a quick reliever. Be sure that whether you deal with heat or cold, you always want a barrier against the skin.
• Prepare food in advance so that whether times are hard, or your family is down with sickness, you can have a quick healthy meal being put together when you aren’t at your fullest strength. My middle kid was able to recover faster than the rest of us so he was able to pull homemade frozen waffles from the freezer to warm up, packages of frozen cooked biscuits and breakfast sausage, beef brisket with broth and even prepared taco meat.
• Disposable plates, cups and plasticware can be useful to reduce your already heavy chore load, sometimes you don’t have time to even throw a load of dishes on so keeping some cheap disposables tucked away. I would recommend that you train up your children young when it comes to learning to wash dishes by hand, that way if the dishwasher breaks down you can count on anyone healthy to help you out.
• Learn to make your own tinctures and teas with the assistance of a few good herbal books. It’s much better for you to make your own medicine for illness rather than trusting big companies that use suspicious ingredients.
• Never underestimate the power of stockpiling toilet paper and facial tissues, all you need is to get one bad case of Montezuma’s revenge or a severe head cold and your supply of paper goods will get depleted, especially if you have a big family.
• Two products that I highly recommend all families keep stockpiled are Xlear Nasal Spray and Zand Elderberry Zinc Lozenges. I can’t make any official health claims for these two, but I will say that from a non-medical person’s standpoint, they seem to reduce the length of illness, but I’ll leave you to discover that for yourself.
• To help reduce the risk of spread, you can pick up cheap dollar tree thermometers and covers that can be labeled for each person in the family. You can pick up other cheap medical supplies at the local Dollar Tree as well.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me or find me on social media.