Homeopathy and colds

If you've read much in my blog, you realize that I like the outdoors, natural things, animals, birds. One of the reasons I enjoy running is because it gets me outside where I become part of nature.

My enjoyment of natural things extends to the healing of colds. I use homeopathic remedies instead of traditional medicine. For example, I haven't had an aspirin in 40 years, maybe longer. Except for the first 24 hours or so after serious surgery, I don't take "pain killers". In a way, my use of homeopathic remedies is part of my running since my health is part of my running. If you're not interested in reading about homeopathy, feel free to skip the rest of this post.

Homeopathic remedies aren't drugs. They don't heal me. They don't dull my nerves so I feel less pain. They don't have side effects. They can be given to small children. They act like a catalyst and get my body to heal itself.

My colds have two phases. First is the "thin mucus" phase. That is followed by the "thick mucus" phase. The remedies I take for a cold depend on the phase I'm in. All of the remedies I use are 30X, where 30X refers to the potency of the remedy. When living in Massachusetts I used 30C, which is more potent, but here in Utah the health food stores don't carry 30C. The stores do carry 6X, but I use the more potent 30X.

Thin-Mucus Phase

During the first 24 hours of a cold, I'll take 1 tablet of Aconitum Napellus every 3 or 4 hours. During the remainder of this phase, I'll take 1 tablet of Euphrasia AND 1 tablet of Allium Cepa every 3 or 4 hours.

Thick-Music Phase

Once my cold progresses to the thick, yellowish phase, I switch to 1 tablet of Pulsatilla AND 1 tablet of Hepar Sulph every 3 or 4 hours.

That's it. These remedies do wonders with my colds.

As a side note, homeopathic remedies are very diluted, and I have to be careful to not pollute them with food residues in my mouth or body grease from my fingers. I never touch the tablets. I pour one tablet into the bottle lid and then drop it into my mouth. I use my tongue to push the tablet under my tongue and then let it dissolve (5-10 seconds). I take them 15 minutes before I eat or brush my teeth, or one hour after I've done those things.

The reason that I use different remedies in each of the two phases is that homeopathic remedies are used to treat symptoms not ailments. The thin or thick mucus is a symptom. The cold is the ailment. The remedies I mentioned can be used for other ailments as well as for colds. For example, when my daughter, Tova, was young, she had an aversion to fat -- she would suffer serious nausea when she ate foods containing fat. When she was in middle school and high school and would go on a school trip, she took Pulsatilla with her, and that allowed her to eat fast foods with no nausea. By the time she entered college, she had grown out of that aversion.