Oh dear Baymule, I'm so glad to hear you are finally finished with the painting!!! This has been a marathon for you!!!
What a bummer, that you also suffer with MCS, but it's good that you don't have it as bad as I do. I've actually met people online, who have it even worse than I do.
My heart goes out to them!!!
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I'm so sorry to hear about your cold!
I had a really, really bad cold a couple months ago. It was miserable, giving me laryngitis, and moving down into my lungs. By doing all of the following alternative remedies, it was less than a week, before I started getting better.
Plenty of rest - you are smart to take it easy B/4 starting your floor.
Plenty of fluids - I always do that in the form of hot teas - soothes a sore throat . Make sure you breathe in the steam through your nose - helps the sinuses and the lungs:
Lemon juice in hot water with Raw, Organic, Unfiltered Honey (ROUH) give the tea a chance to cool some, so the enzyme benefits of the honey are preserved. High temps destroy those enzymes.
Echinacea tea with ROUH - In case you're wondering - it's pronounced: row-oooooh!
Chamomile with ROUH
Stinging Nettle tea with ROUH - helps liquefy sinus and lung congestion. Side benefit: acts as a diuretic, if you retain fluid.
Zinc Gluconate - I take 50 mg twice daily when I am sick
Vitamin D3 - I take 5,000 i.u. Daily
Vitamin C - I take 3,000 mg, three times daily
Selenium - I take 100 mcg 2 times daily
Echinacea & Goldenseal - 225/225mg - I take 2 capsules 3 times daily
And true to the old wives tale, I put on a big pot of chicken soup - (no noodles or rice), with lots of onion and garlic (speeds up healing), and lots of low starch veggies, with the exception of sweet potatoes which are loaded with healing vitamins and minerals. I use a whole organic, free range chicken with the fat included. It turns out that the wives tale is correct. It's the healthy fat in organic chicken that makes homemade chicken soup good for healing a cold. I do not recommend pre-packaged chicken soup, as it does not have the healing qualities of the homemade version. I also do not recommend factory farm raised chicken, due to unsanitary conditions and GMO feed.
I don't drink fruit juice, as is often recommended (yes, this also means Orange juice). I suggest cutting back on all sugar and eat a low carb diet, because the sugar/carbs feed the virus, and slow down the healing process.
If it goes into your lungs, like mine did, do "Cough and Deep Breathe". This was highly recommended, by Mayo Clinic Respiratory Specialist, whom I knew when I worked there. I taught it to all my patients. Not all of them did it, but the ones who did got great results:
Cough and Deep Breathe
Three to five times a day do the following after breathing steam for 10-20 minutes. You probably know the drill - pot of almost boiling water, towel over head, breathe in through your nose, as deep as possible. The goal is to get the steam as deep into the lungs as possible:
Step 1
Take a moderate cleansing breath - in and out.
Step 2
Take as large a breath in, as you can, and then (through pursed lips) slowly force as much air, as you can, out of your lungs. I find that bending, at the waist slightly, helps get more air out of your lungs.
Step 3
Now cough! Until you can't cough any more air out of your lungs.
Step 4
Take another cleansing moderate breath and a few normal breaths. You don't want to get light headed.
Repeat Steps 1-4 Four to five times in one sitting, and then again 3-5 times daily.
This is not going to seem like a normal cough. It may seem small and ineffective. But it is very helpful, because it begins to force the sputum (mucous) that has settled to the bottom of your lungs to begin to work it's way up to the top, so it can be coughed out. You won't be able to couh sputum out right away. It takes time to work it's way out. It is when that sputum sits in the lower lungs, that bacteria can start to multiply and cause pneumonia.
You may not be able to take a big breath, in the beginning, due to inflamed lung tissue. Just take in as much air as you can and let out as much as you can. If you start a coughing spasm, stop and breathe normally for a minute or two. Breathing more steam will soothe those lung tissues. The important thing is to breathe in steam before starting, and to at least attempt it throughout the day.
My friend, Dr. Dunn, told me this was the best thing his bronchitis and pneumonia patients could do, to begin healing their infection. His patients who did steps 1-4 before they had bronchitis or pneumonia, didn't get it. Or, if they did get an infection, and they did this, they got over it faster. This is one of the most effective non-medical interventions you can do, when you have a cold that moves down into your lungs.
@Baymule, I hope something here helps you feel better soon!
