Help if you got the flu....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 1-15-2015

Last month on Tuesday, 12-9-2014 we had a post titled Escape colds and flu and pneumonia and more….

We did that post for two reasons. 

One is that there were early reports this flu season had started early and might be worse than some previous years. 

The other was the information that olive extract was not only somewhat effective at combating both cold and flu viruses and the bacteria that can set in if you get a bad case of those, it tested to do so much more strongly than I had yet read about.

So, some of the methods in that post will help you if you got the flu or got it anyway after beginning some of the things in that post.

I did myself.  My wife put out a large effort to visit her much older Aunt on the other side of the country.  Then her evening flight back was delayed and became a middle of the night flight. This apparently lowered her resistance the bad flu going around there. It lowered my resistance.

She got the flu very shortly after that.  And after she came down with it and exposed me to it every evening and night and early morning, in a few days I got it too.

Apparently this year’s flu is very strong. Even though the things I was doing such as are in our 12-9 blog post kept it a bit mild and kept it a bit milder for my wife, we both seemed to not get over it very fast. 

1.  One of the things we did that were in the 12-9 post is to take 5,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 or more.

But for avoiding or getting quickly rid of such a strong flu that may not have been aggressive enough.

Because an extra 25,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 slammed my case of the flu to a stop in about three days, and the flu is so nasty this year and so many people have it, I thought it important to do this post to get out that word alone!

(Next we cover two things that always help that we have posted on before.)

Vitamin D3 is to your immune system what electricity or gasoline or diesel fuel is to your car.   The more you get the stronger and better armed your immune system becomes.

And, I had read that in one very bad year for flu in Europe many people died.  Then some research was done that found the almost all the people who died were severely deficient in vitamin D3.

The owner at my local health food store has believed in vitamin D3 even more than I have.  In particular, my intake of 8200 iu a day got my D3 blood level to 83 on one test and 82 on another.  That’s high enough to be quite health protective.  And with 15,000 to 25,000 easily  possible from summer sun exposure and quite safe, 8200 iu a day clearly is also!

But when I caught the recent bad flu and it seemed unusually slow to get over it, the owner of our local health food store said that it would help to take 50,000 iu a day of D3. 

That's likely safe; but I'm a bit more conservative than that normally. 

But I was tired of having the flu hang on though, so I added an extra 25,000 iu a day

-- and immediately, literally that day and the next two days, my flu got much less and shortly I got over it.  So, it DID seem to help!

To be accurate, I had been doing all the other things I know to make it go away.  So some of that good effect was likely from the cumulative effect of those and I was possibly close to getting over it anyway.

But I think 90% of the effect was from the extra vitamin D3 for two reasons. 

a)  Almost immediately two things happened for me, I totally stopped feeling sick on the very first day AND despite feeling better my fever went up boosting the dickens out of my immune response without discomfort to me.

b) Since my wife started the extra vitamin D3 the same day I did and got the same effect, I am convinced the vitamin D3 did the job.

So if you are sick with the bad flu now or get it or one like it later, this is for sure one to try I didn’t know about a month ago!

(Stores that sell supplements as a sideline, carry up to 5,000 iu of vitamin D3.  So you can take an extra 5 a day of those.  But you can get 25,000 iu capsules at many health food stores which is more convenient to take.)

Here are the two things that are always good to do if you get a bad cold or flu:

2.  Drink extra water!

Doctors always say to do this.  But the style is such that it comes off like, we can’t do much to make your cold or flu go away but try these.

That’s horrible and truly unfortunate because drinking enough water is critically important for three reasons.

a) Drinking extra water will keep you much more able to function and avoid feeling light headed.

So, it’s dramatically better than not being able to walk around and feeling extra depleted on top of just feeling sick.

It’s powerful effect that benefits you.  Always do it for that reason.

b) It’s safer, much safer, because the dehydration you get otherwise can

be directly harmful,

cause falls and accidents,

and dehydration from being sick may set you up for getting dangerous follow on bacterial infections like pneumonia.

c)  Because of the drying effects of the fever, which in and of itself boosts your immune system and helps you kill viruses, it’s extremely easy to get dehydrated because you don’t feel thirsty; plus what thirst you do have may not be as noticeable due to feeling sick.

So do two things.  Schedule extra tea or water breaks by the clock.   And, do what I call rotating water:  as soon as you have to visit the bathroom because of  the extra water intake, RIGHT THEN, replace what you just lost by drinking some more water.

3.  Chest congestion makes you feel worse and having it while you try to sleep can impair your breathing and effective rest or the extra coughing can slash your sleep a lot.

Worse, the gunk can grow bronchitis germs or even pneumonia.

But did you know that it’s partly optional to keep it around?

Studies found people who always eat hot, spicy foods usually don’t have those problems.

What I just found really effective and not too harsh is to do two things:

When you get up and have coffee add about 10 to 14 shakes of cayenne pepper.  (This also helps your sore throat feel better once the hot, spicy feeling wears off.)

Add bedtime, do the same with decaf!

And, in both cases, keep some paper towels or toilet pepper handy for the runny nose and stuff you will cough up and be rid of!