Woman’s Passions

Winter is almost here and we do not want to catch cold at all. So, let’s learn some elementary tricks, allowing starting a swarm attack against viral infection, penetrating into our organism

Winter is almost here and we do not want to catch cold at all. So, let’s learn some elementary tricks, allowing starting a swarm attack against viral infection, penetrating into our organism. 

If you feel you caught cold, it’s useful to rub garlic into your palms and feet, put on woolen socks and lie in bed, holding hands under blanker during whole night. It’s also recommended to rub cider vinegar in your hands before going to bed, putting them in hot water during 10 minutes beforehand. You can rub castor oil in your feet before going to bed and put on woolen socks. To increase medicinal effect you can add turpentine (1 table spoon) in warmed castor oil (2 table spoons) and rub this mixture in your chest before going to bed.

Drops

If you or your baby suffer from coryza, don’t rush to buy nasal drops. Warm olive, peach, dog-rose, sea-buckthorn, menthol or sunflower-seed oil, and also vitamin A Solutio oleosa will be much more efficient.

You will probably find several garlic cloves in every house. You can prepare garlic drops of it. Peel of 3 garlic cloves, pound them, pour with 50 ml of boiling water, leave for 2 hours and drop in nose several times per day.

Onion juice is also efficient. Grate onion clove small and squeeze onion gruel. You will need just 1 drop of onion juice for 1 table spoon of water. Drop this mixture in your nose every hour.

If you have honey, prepare honey drops. Dilute honey (better white) with warm water in proportion 1:2 and drop 5-8 drops in each nostril 3-4 times per day.

Inhalations

As a rule, steam inhalations are used twice a day - in the morning and evening. Duration of any inhalation should not exceed 15 minutes for adults and 5-7 minutes for children, as longer procedures can increase huskiness and cause irritation of already inflamed nasopharynx.

Inhalations are carried out at least 30 minutes after meal. During inhalation you should not look aside - read or talk. If your nasopharynx is affected, then you should inhale through nose and breathe out through nose and mouth. If your bronchi are affected, inhale through mouth and breathe out through mouth and nose. Anyway, after breath you need to outwind for several seconds, then make a deep outward breath. Breathing should not be rapid, to avoid cough.

Most often they use potato for breathing above it. But there are also lots of other much more efficient compositions for inhalations. Here’re some of them:

-    add 5-10 drops of iodine tincture or 1 tea spoon of onion juice in a kettle of boiling water (4-5 glasses);
-    put 3 table spoons of pine buds in a pan, pour with 0,5 liters of boiling water, heat during 3-5 minutes on weak fire, remove decoction from fire and put a pan on a scorching brick;
-    add 2-5 drops of eucalyptus, menthol or fir oil in a kettle with 250 ml of boiling water;
-    pour 250 ml of boiling water in a tin and add small quantity of Vietnamese balm.

Compresses

Compress is used for quick resorption of local inflammatory processes. It is put to a problem area - throat, ear, chest, back, nape, feet, legs. Compress should consist of 4 layers. The first one - is a rag of material, folded in 2-3 layers and moistened in room temperature water or vodka: squeeze it and put on body. Second one - oil-cloth, waxed paper or cellophane. Third - cotton wool. Fourth - material or bandage for wrapping and this way compress is fixed on body tightly (avoid compressing vessels). You can also put on a woolen scarf on top.

First layer’s size should be slightly bigger that a part of body where compress is put. Every other layer’s size is 2-3 cm bigger than previous. Duration of compress is from 1 to 12 hours, depending on a patient’s age, severity of illness and kind of compress.

Folk medicine has lots of remedies, which can be used for cold treatment at home.

-    Moisten cloth in sunflower-seed oil and apply on body for 4 hours.
-    Apply a night compress: mix 50 ml of vinegar, 20 ml of camphor-oil and 30 ml of vegetable oil.
-    Mix ground red pepper with slightly squeezed gruel of grated potato, apply to neck, chest, legs, feet or behind ears.
-    If you suffer from fever, put horse-radish gruel on cloth and apply to nape for 30 minutes.

Baths

Baths with medicinal herbs give a good result while colds, but you should remember that one cannot take bath, if he has high temperature and bad state of health. Water temperature should be between 35-37C, and duration of bath should not exceed 15 minutes. Best of all is to take baths before going to bed or 1 hour before eating.

To prepare medicinal baths it is recommended to add such plants, as chamomile (flowers), pine-tree (needles and shoots), oak and birch leaves, mint, marjoram, wormwood, sage, valerian, milfoil in water. 300-400 g of stuff is poured with a bucket of boiling water, extracted during an hour, filtered and poured into bath. You can use 1-2 plants, but decoctions of 4-5 plants give stronger medicinal effect.

Mustard hot footbaths contribute to quick recovery while cold. They are prepared this way: dilute 250-400 g of dry mustard in warm water to receive sour cream consistence and pound until you sense acrid mustard smell. Pour received gruel in a basin and shake it up carefully in water. Duration of such bath is 5-6 minutes. After bath you should rinse feet quickly and lie in bed, wrapping yourself in a warm blanket.

If you notice cold symptoms in yourself, change your food ration urgently. Refuse from fat heavy food for 1-2 days. Switch to a cleaning diet. Eat in general salads, vegetable soups and fruits. Drink more. Diaphoretic teas and fresh juices are very health-giving, especially pine-apple juice.