School is in session, the weather is changing from warm and sunny to chilly and cloudy, and the local drug stores are advertising flu shots. It’s that time of year, and it sure hit fast and hard this time around, at least in my little corner of the Pacific Northwest. This is week two of a nasty cold that lodged itself somewhere between my sinuses and chest, and it’s thrown me because I don’t get sick often. Usually at the first sign that some stealthy little virus has invaded my body I can knock it out with extra vitamin C, preferably in the form of Emergenc-C, sucking on Zand zinc and elderberry lozenges, and if those don’t work alone, I’ll take Oscillococcinum. This time around I was lazy. It was late at night when I first realized I was getting sick so I just went to bed, and when I woke up the sickness had obviously taken root, so I needed a different game plan. You need to take oscillococcinum right when you first feel sick for it to work, so instead of that I started taking Bragg’s apple cider vinegar (2 t in a glass of water) three times per day, along with Umcka. Actually Umcka also should be taken right when first feeling sick, but it will help reduce the length and severity of symptoms whenever you start taking it, so late is better than never. The day after I started Umcka I felt markedly better which was a relief because those first couple of days really hit me hard. Also, I’ve replaced my neti pot with a squeeze bottle because my oldest can use it much easier than the neti, and any kind of sinus rinse helps the recovery process. Instead of masking the symptoms like over-the-counter remedies do, these natural remedies actually help the body to fight the virus and they have no bad effects at all, no tiredness or liver stress. They also can provide extra benefits as well, such as building your immune system to fight other bacteria and viruses that are hanging around. If you don’t already have these on hand for when your next cold or flu creeps up, you might want to stock them, or at least choose one or two as your go-to remedies, because catching illnesses at the beginning is always far more effective. Here’s the list:
Of course plenty of rest and tea help too, as well as adding essential oils (any!) to your environment or clothing. Stay well everyone!
spice of life blog 
This is so funny, I aM using the emergen/C and the lozenges 🙂
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This is interesting – I’d never heard of Umcka, although I do use Oscillo…
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I’m not sure how long Umcka has been around~ I just noticed it this year. It works really well though. I’ve been using it again b/c after traveling I started to feel a cold coming on and it zapped it! Pretty awesome stuff.
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Reblogged this on spice of life blog and commented:
What to do when you feel a cold or flu coming on or it has already knocked you down. Adding thieve’s oil daily to your essential oil diffuser also helps keep you healthy, and essential oils in general are health promoting so if you don’t have thieve’s oil, use whatever you do have.
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