weekend library raid again

[anotheranon]

Hit the library to put in an ILL for "Uniforms of the British Army, Navy" etc. but despite my existing stack I couldn't stay away from the shelves :P Managed to get a lot of the political books that are always checked out/have a long waiting list:

• Crimes Against Nature by RFK Jr., about the destruction the Bush Administration and others are doing to the environment
  
• Body of Secrets, a history of the NSA
  
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, which I've been trying to get hold of for months, but was always checked out
  
• The Life of Thomas More - ok, it's not modern politics, but it sure mattered in the 1520s :P Besides, my dad liked to refer to this guy as "the last honest lawyer" and enjoyed this book, so I figure I'll read it as a tribute to him :/

Still not feeling great. Headache and sore throat seem to have settled in. I'm trying nminusone's recommendation of medicinal use of xylitol, and while it coats the throat nicely I'm not noticing any real improvement.

I'm hoping I don't suffer a mood drop by evening, as has happened for the past couple of Sundays. Honestly, I don't dread Monday mornings that much, I just wish the weekends were longer and that I'd get well to enjoy them (not hitting Air and Space - neither of us really feel like it).

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

This is going to sound REALLY weird, but it's something that my mother found in an old herbal or something (Mom's really into this stuff and has enough knowledge to pick the good stuff out of a morass of old wives' tales.

Peel and chop an onion, put about 1/2 cup of pieces in a small bowl (a dessert nappie will do) of honey, and set it somewhere warm to steep for a couple of hours (in cold weather, on top of a register/radiator is perfect ... a sunny windowsill works nicely as well). Then take a couple of spoonfuls of the honey (you don't have to eat the onion ... unless you're hungry ***grin***). Helpful for mild sore throat and the dry cough that often accompanies it ... I have absolutely no idea WHY it works, but you can safely take it when you need it (nothing more horrible than the medication starting to wear off and you can't have any more for another hour :P )

[hadesgirl.livejournal.com]

My mom used to make that concoction for me when I was little. Great stuff. And I would also lay by the hot air register and breathe in the vapors as well - like poor mans' Vicks vapo-rub!\

Hope you feel better, Allison - get lots of rest.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

If two moms do it, then it MUST be good for you! ;-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

If I start coughing, I will give this a try. Right now, it strangely, no cough, not even a dry throat, just soreness (?)

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

It helps ease soreness too. And the longer the onions soak, the better it works. :-)

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

Honey is supposed to have some significant antibiotic properties. I would imagine it must, otherwise you'd think that nasty stuff would start growing in open jars of honey almost immediately. Now when it comes to onions, I am mostly clueless.

I don't know the details of your situation, but if you have a serious and long-standing sinus (or thereabouts) infection, I think that's the sort of thing that will take strong measures and persistance to get rid of. I would definitely stick with the xylitol, making sure to use a teaspoon or more at least 6 times a day. If you're pre-dissolving it in water, seriously consider spooning it into your mouth dry and taking just a small sip of water to dissolve it. (If that's no good, use as little water as possible. Using warmer water will allow you to use less.) Keep swishing it around in your mouth til you get real bored, a couple of minutes at least.

I would also suggest increasing your vitamin c intake up to bowel tolerance, at least for a day or 2, just to see how many grams that is. Unfortunately my experience with this type of infection is that the bowel tolerance remains fairly low, and the additional vitamin c is not nearly as helpful as in other cases. I am guessing that some infections are physically located in tissues where the immune system can't readily get at them, but that is purely a guess on my part.

If you reach bowel tolerance for a couple days and it does not help, or if you skip that part entirely, drop down to a more normal level, say 3-6 grams per day.

If you have any kind of fever or muscle pain, you need to eat. And I mean EAT! You should aim for 50 to 100% more calories than normal, though once you get the hang of it you can better titrate your food dose based on how you feel. Eat mostly carbs, but low glycemic index / lots of fiber, and plenty of protein as well. Eat a bunch of small meals throughout the day. Remember to stay hydrated too. If you have glutamine handy, add 15-25 grams per day and consider it food. Eating too little is a sure way to have a fever and feel like crap. Odds are you will be forcing yourself to eat, to some extent, but it is critical. (This is where the smaller meals will help.) The immune system can use a huge amount of calories when it's working hard, and underfeeding just guarantees that it will be starved and unable to work well.

Overall I'd say the xylitol and the eating are the 2 most important things, out of those I've mentioned. Keep up a good base dose of vitamin c, 3-6 grams, and add the glutamine if you have it handy. Even if you add other things like the honey/onion idea, or prescription antibiotics, I'd also stick with the things I've described.

Oh if you happen to be one of those people who can readily tolerate flushing their sinuses with stuff, you can get a lot more aggressive using xylitol, neutralized vitamin c and probably also saline. If you get to a point where you might want to try that, let me know and I can go into the details.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Me? ***HUGE grin*** I'm one of those incredibly annoying (to the sick) people who hardly ever catches anything (the bugs usually just bounce off my immune system ... if the flu is making the rounds, I might have twenty minutes of sniffles) ... I was raised on a good, healthy farm diet and I still would far rather drink a pitcher of orange juice than pop. My Mom just has a long-standing interest in natural, rather than man-made-chemical, remedies, etc. ... a couple of my younger siblings ARE cold-prone and got to be the guinea pigs when they still lived at home.

All I can say about the honey'n'onion mixture is that it worked like MAGIC on my brother the first time my mother tried it (I sampled it ... not bad-tasting, but then I LOVE onions!). Did a quick bit of online research ... according to Holistic Online (which includes the onion and honey remedy) and a few other sites, garlic and onions are excellent antivirals.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I AM eating - D. made divine banana bread so I've been munching that a lot. I wouldn't say I'm eating more than usual though - just not that hungry! You do remind me though - I always thought it was feed a cold, starve a fever, now I know it's the other way around!

Thanks for your suggestions above though - I'll let you know.

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

Ok, just keep up the eating! Knowing when to eat is tricky when you're not well; the usual rules go out the window. My comments below aren't directed at you, rather, I just wanted to expand on and clarify some points about eating when you're sick. It really is kinda tricky, and it often does feel like forcing oneself to eat, which makes it very hard to know when and how much to eat. It's also amazing how quickly eating becomes a chore, if you have to do it when you're not hungry!

> I always thought it was feed a cold, starve a fever, now I know
> it's the other way around!

Personally I don't agree with that axiom, in forward or in reverse. Nobody's immune system ever runs on air, and when it's really working hard it can consume calories at a rate in the ballpark of your normal resting metabolic rate (RMR). Usually it's less than this amount, but the basic idea is that the immune system can burn a lot of calories. This means you might need to do as much as double your calorie intake in some cases.

If you're not taking in enough calories, you get one of 2 things happening. Either your body tears itself apart, literally, to get fuel, or it throttles back the immune response. In most cases, there will be some of each happening. A lot of the muscle pain from illness is due to your body breaking down muscle and using it as food (catabolism). What's worse, the body can't run on protein alone, so it has to use some of the broken-down protein to make sugar. This process is very inefficient (uses a lot of muscle to make a little sugar) and hard on the body because it throws off a lot of ammonia. Being in a catabolic state when you're sick is very bad. (It also makes you feel like crap; even without being ill, low blood sugar + high ammonia is a great recipe for a bad mood. You'll also be at least somewhat ketotic. This state is somewhat comparable to the Atkins "induction" phase.)

At these times you literally have to force yourself to eat, because the exact same condition that leads to catabolism (high cortisol) also suppresses your appetite. You won't feel hungry, instead you might feel jittery, stressed or anxious. As secondary effects you might feel sore, tired or weak. You might also find your heart rate and possibly breathing to be faster than you'd expect, espcially when at rest, and you might notice that even a very slight exercise, like a flight of stairs, seems way more exerting than it should. You might even be highly productive, in a "gotta hurry, can't stop to eat" sort of way. Those things should all be treated as signs of hunger when you're sick.

Vitamin C throws another confusing factor into the equation. Let's keep it short and say that all of what I'm describing here applies to people who are getting enough vitamin c, in the context of whatever their immune system is fighting. If you're not getting enough then things are a little different, since the weak link in the chain is no longer food, but vitamin c. I'm not going to talk about that case because what's the use in coaching someone to run a marathon with leg irons on?

If you're not sore, weak or tired, jittery, nervous or agitated, and your temperature is normal, then you're probably eating enough. I realize that it's normally a very bad idea to use food to relax yourself, but in the case of illness, it's often essential.