i find whenever feel a cold coming on go on a massive vitamin c binge!
most medications taking this amount would b suicidal overdose, but with vitamin c no sideeffects except some bowel backfire but well worth it ,never done this and hasnt gone away the next day or 2. Heres details w/ dosage chek it out
http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/surefire.shtml

Cold/Flu Cure #1: 8 g every 20 minutes

At first sign of cold or flu, begin taking at least 8 g (8000 mg) of vitamin C as ascorbic acid every twenty minutes for 3 to 4 hours until bowel tolerance, and then smaller dosages of 2-4 g every 4-6 hours for ten days to prevent recurrence.

Vitamin C and chicken noodle soup. It's a classic.

Also just wanted to note, that excessively washing your hands and using hand sanitizer all of the time, lowers your immune system, also excessive use of antibiotics makes things worse for everyone (it helps bacteria evolve into more powerful strains). That means only get antibiotics when you're on deaths door. And actually as counterintuitive as it seems, if you don't use hand sanitizer all of the time you will boost your immune system. It's better to let your body do what it does unless you have medical reasons not to, such as you are immune compromised. It's better to get a little sick and boost your immune system then get a lot sick after trying to avoid germs by excessive hand washing.

have to agree with the vitamin c suggestions. I just kicked the tail end of a nasty cold by eating a 3lb bag of "cutie" tangerines onver the course of two days. That, lots of sleep, trying not to get stressed, and cutting the crap out of my diet in favor of healthy foods, most importantly a ton of fruit, really opened up a can of whoopass on whatever hijacked my body.

Antibiotics are for if you need to be hospitalized due to a cold/flu, anything else is unnecessary.

And one other thing, drink as much water as you can handle. Dehydration is the flu/cold's best friend.

I got the flu a few weeks ago. I immediatly drank some cats claw with caapi mixed in..then I began dosing echinacea and eating garlic every few hours..and some onions..I took about 2g of vitamine C. Then I woke up the next day and had more echinacea and garlic and a teaspoon of trich peruvianus powder. I dosed echinacea all day and about 8g of vitamine C throughout the day. I took 3 hot baths to bring my temp up and simulate a fever. I did not even have the flu for 30 hours.

Also wanted to add that antibiotics are only for bacterial infections. If its confirmed to be a viral infection, like the flu. Antibiotics won't do anything.

caapi, cacti and echinacea are all anti viral. There are lots of anti viral herbs out there.

Whenever I get a cold or flu I go on partial fast where I eat nothing but Moringa oleifera leaves for at least one full day. In the warmer months I eat the leaves fresh straight off my trees and in the cooler months when the trees have died back I eat dehydrated leaves that I've harvested and stored during the active growing season.

Moringa is like a broad spectrum multi vitamin and the vitamins are all in a form that your body can easily absorb. Moringa is also a complete food source, you can live on nothing but Moringa.

At the end of the first day I will typically get diarrhea and get a really good intestinal cleanout from it. The diarrhea only seems to happen if you take Moringa when you are sick so I guess the chlorophyll and all the phytochemicals have a powerful effect on parasitic organisms and flush them out if not kill them outright.

After the first day and after the intestinal purge, I start ingesting raw coconut oil. I use 2 Tbsn 3 times a day. Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid and and several other fatty acids that have proven to have powerful anti microbial action. Coconut oil also contains glycerol monolaurate (GML) which is a powerful antibacterial shown to be effective in the treatment of resistant strains of tuberculosis -powerful stuff.

Coconut oil is also anti parasitic and has anti viral properties as well, much of this has been attributed the medium chain fatty acids (MCFA's) that make up the lipid profile of the oil. It does all this while being relatively harmless to the good bacteria in the intestinal tract.

There's a wealth of peer reviewed research on the anti bacterial anti viral properties of coconut oil. Well worth investigation.

I was diagnosed with H1N1 several years ago and after 4 days on this regime I was asymptomatic and felt better than I had in ages.

Sutherlandia frutescens is incredibly powerful for the treatment of the systems of colds and flu, a combination of ginger, honey, lemon tea, reishi tincture, vitamin C, garlic and echinacea with sutherlandia is pretty much unbeatable from my expereince. ♥


Much Peace and Happiness

Why is it so hard to find reliable information on the common cold as a layman?

I'm particularly interested in explaining a peculiar phenomenon i experience all the time during cold season.

It's as if i'm being attacked by cold viri all the time, with a runny nose and a scratchy throat. But it sometimes takes weeks until it develops into a full blown infection.

It could be, that this is because of different strains trying to infect me at the same time. Still, i wonder if a runny nose isn't already a sign of infection? That would mean, that building resistance against a particular strain takes a STRONG immune response, no?

Can you gain immunity to a Rhinovirus strain if your immune response is low?

I'm asking, because it would not make sense to use antiviral herbs etc to fight an infection, if all it does is to keep it in check until the moment the sick person gets back into unhealthy habits (e.g lack of sleep, drinking, smoking, bad diet)

Just coming out of having a nasty flu turned into bronchial infection myself, all whilst having to move house and still work (self employed and need the money to pay rent, two late night of gigs surely didn't help my cause and sickness) wish I'd logged onto the nexus earlier, some good advice in this thread

The worst thing I've found when I get the flu, and it's been at least two years since I got it last (I have a pretty rockin' immune system) is at the tail end I start getting real down and get edgy, anxious nerves. I can handle physical maladies okay but hate it when my mental faculties are compromised. From what I could gather online, the body starts dipping into the brains serotonin if a flu drags on too long... Maybe some caapi/rue next time would be a good idea as a serotonin boost (as jamie mentioned earlier in regards to the caapi, at least as an anti-viral).

Almost feeling back to normal now finally, both mentally and physically. I found forcing myself into the ocean on a daily basis really helped with clearing out my system and as a natural antidepressant/mood booster once I'd left the water. Probably not something to do in the height of a fever/flu but on the back end it helped in spades for me.

Andrographis in combination with eleuthero has been shown to have positive effects in shortening the common cold.

I swear by a good mushroom complex for staving off anything as well as fighting it if you catch it early. Nothing beats a healthy lifestyle though for being (or at least feeling) immune to most everything.

I found onion put into honey overnight, add some grape-seed extract and voila - one of the top disgusting things ever but it helps.

anyways I've been actually trying to experiment with rue and caapi for microbial infection, plan to make some tincture and let you know in future. But I tried taking some rue seeds in capsule when I was sick and it did help a bit I think, or at least it made my mood better which helped me overall...

This is how I get my daily raw fruits and veggies. No more washing and preparing produce that goes bad in a few days. It's immune-boosting ingredients should help prevent colds too.

http://www.amazon.com/Am...-Tangerine/dp/B00JSIMYTA

1740% vitamin C! 125% vitamin D, plus other vitamins and minerals from natural sources.

Check out these organic ingredients:

-Wheat and barely grass, alfalfa, spinach, spirulina, chlorella, broccoli

-Reishi, himematsutake, shiitake, turkey tail mushrooms

-Olive leaf extract, elderberry, ginger root, astragalus, androghraphis

-rose hips, maca, pineapple, carrot, acerola cherry, green tea, raspberry, acai, beet

-flax seed powder and apple pectin fiber

-digestive enzymes, pre/probiotics

I don't sell this product nor am I affiliated with this company. It's just one hell of a convenient and tasty way to get your immune-boosting nutrients all in one shot.

I also recommend taking quality systemic/proteolytic enzyme supplement to take some of the load off of your immune system so it can focus on areas of need. I use Enzymedica's Enzyme Defense.

There are a lot of good suggestions here. I'll have to keep some of them in mind.

My usual approach is to drink large amounts of orange juice and get an extra hour or two of sleep per night until the symptoms are gone.

Orange juice is full of sugar. Based on the research that I've done, there does seem to be a link between excess sugar and immune system suppression. You can get vitamin C from other less sugary sources.

http://www.marksdailyapp...ne-system/#axzz3qaEbPrVT

http://ajcn.nutrition.or...tent/26/11/1180.abstract

Just a suggestion...

Thanks for the tip. I have to say I do like orange juice though. I don't think I'll stop any time soon.

Either way, I think its the extra sleep that really does it. I think our society doesn't spend nearly enough time and effort looking into the need for proper sleep.

Oh yeah, I like it too. Fresh from the juicer is best! I was just suggesting moderation, not complete abstinence.



Agreed. Sleep is so underrated in our society.

I usually take one spoonful of pure, unadulterated honey mixed with 1/2 tsp of powdered nigella sativa seeds. This can be repeated twice a day, if needed. Clears and prevents any cold/flu from emerging or re-emerging, ime. Powerful medicine.

Its interesting that no one has mentioned an absolute fast.
If any forum were to advocate fasting [perhaps with a bit of hallucinogen mixed in ] I would expect it on a DMT forum.

In the early 20th century fasting, where only water is taken, to rapidly resolve colds, flu, even pneumonia was quite popular. Prolonged absolute fasts were even used for much more serious conditions. Its unfortunate that a nexus of factors broke the momentum of fasting research around 1945, medical science is just now starting to reexamine it.

I cant report any experiences tho, as I almost never get sick. My last flu was in 1996.
Anyone tried absolute fasting? With or without harmalas.

Ah yes, good old black seed. I've been taking it in oil form twice daily with a little honey. Is there an advantage of using the ground seed as opposed to oil? (besides price?) I always assumed the oil was more effective because of more concentrated amounts of thymoquinone.



Good suggestion. I think we sometimes get so focused on our doings that we forget how important our not-doings are as well.

Fasting makes sense because it's an energy-redirecting activity. When the body isn't always directing its resources towards digestion/metabolism it can focus on areas of need, when we need it.

However, one of my concerns with fasting is for people like me who are underweight with really lean body-types/fast metabolism. It can it be hard to keep a healthy weight on when fasting.

My other concern is how fasting can affect insulin levels. Does it throw it off balance or cause unhealthy spikes when we resume eating?