Flu Season -- Be Prepared Homeopathically

It’s that time of year again, when there are signs and advertisements everywhere to get your flu shot. Many places offer them for free. Whether you choose to inoculate or pass on the vaccine is entirely your personal choice, but sometimes, despite your best efforts, you get the sniffles, a sore throat, cough, or the much dreaded flu. Homeopathy to the rescue.

If you’re new to this alternative medicine choice, it will be more difficult to treat yourself. If you want to learn, educate yourself. Get a beginner’s book to familiarize yourself with the remedies and the symptoms associated with each. It’s a good place to start. Or, find yourself a good, classical homeopath that you trust.

If you use homeopathic remedies, my best advice is to have a personal kit for home and travel. You may know the remedies that work best for you when you feel a cold coming on, and now is the time to be sure you have your Homeopathic Remedy Kit well stocked. I can’t think of anything worse than to reach for the remedy you need when you feel that cold coming on, only to find the bottle near empty or find you don’t even have the remedy you need. Dragging yourself to the store in this condition is, well, miserable.

Homeopathic remedies can really help to lessen the severity of the flu, and stop a cold or sore throat from progressing. The key is to catch it early. Pay attention to your symptoms. Keep your immune system strong. Get enough sleep every night and wash your hands often!

Homeopathic kits can be purchased on-line from such pharmacies as Boiron, Standard, or Helios. Shop around. Some allow you to choose your remedies, some are pre-chosen for you.

Below is a list of some remedies you may want to have on hand (and to investigate further) for your cold, sore throat, or flu

Aconite - One of the first remedies to consider if you have a sudden onset of a fever or other complains after being in cold winds or being exposed in cold weather

Allium Cepa - For a runny nose often accompanied with a headache that feels worse on closing your eyes, sneezing, cough, and often your nose is sore and burning

Apis - Sore throat that burns or stings, is red and swollen that feels worse with warm drinks and better with cool

Arsenicum - Influenza with thin, watery nasal discharge; sneezing; feel restless and anxious, exhausted and weak; can’t tolerate food smells; feel chilly; wheezing breathing, frothy phlegm. Worse midnight to around 2 am

Belladonna - Sudden and violent symptoms. High fever. Throat is dry and burns like fire; inflamed tonsils that are bright red; difficulty swallowing; red, hot face and skin. Dry, tickling cough

Bryonia - Feeling very hot, very dry, very annoyed and all you want to do is to lie very still and be left alone. Aching all over they body with a headache that is worse the least movement and better with pressure. Spasms of coughing

Causticum - burning pain in throat, with soreness and raw feeling; throat feels constricted, and you find yourself swallowing often; hard cough, but cannot bring up phlegm

Eupatorium Perfoliatum - Influenza that affects all the muscles of your body - you feel like you have broken bones all over your body and it is painful to move your body; bursting headache; shivering and chills in back; eyeballs feel sore

Gelsemium - chills run up and down your spine, alternating cold and hot; body feels heavy and tired; sneezing; hard cough; no thirst; bursting headache from behind, forward to your eyes and forehead; sore throat that develops several days after exposure

Hepar Sulphuris Calcareum - sore throat with a well-established cold; feel like a bone or splinter stuck in throat on swallowing; very sensitive to cold and drafts, feeling chilly; spells of choking cough

Ipecacuanha - coughing spells that make you vomit; nausea not relieved by vomiting; wheezing

Kali Bichromicum - persistent cough, with thick, usually yellow lumpy or stringy mucus from cough or sinuses; colds that settle in your sinus; expectoration tastes metallic

Lachesis - Sore throat that starts on the left side and then extends to the right; feels like there is a lump in your throat with a constant desire to swallow; throat feels raw and burning and can swallow solids better than liquids; cannot stand any touch or pressure on your throat especially from a tight collar or turtleneck

Mercurius Solublis/Mercurius Vivus - sore throat that feels raw, and accompanies every cold, metallic taste in your mouth; foul, offensive breath; ear ache; excess of saliva in mouth; feeling worse at night

Nux Vomica - violent chills, feeling cold even in bed and moving under the covers, especially with a fever; aching limbs and back; upset stomach; nose stuffed up at night; dry spasmodic cough that gags and causes retching; cough causes bursting headache; oversensitive to almost everything

Phosphorus - cough that is dry, hard, tickling which is very exhausting; must hold chest when coughing; tightness in chest; worse any change in temperature, warm to cold or cold to warm; worse lying down at night; laughing will bring on a coughing spell; thirsty for very cold or ice water, but can vomit it once it gets into your stomach; hoarseness in through; laryngitis; every cold goes to your chest