Hey!

So this is the brainstorming post that will lead to a more fully inclusive post\tek... We don't need to go into the extreme details here, that will be covered later.

What is good to take when you are sick?

I will get the ball rolling with a few, I know a lot more, but im interested to hear what you all know!

Colloidal Silver (antibacterial)
Shiitake Mushroom (anti-viral, immune stimulant)
Reishi Mushrooms (immune stimulant)
Turkey Tail Mushroom (immune stimulant, anti-flu)
Turmeric Extract (anti-inflammatory)

Culinary Herbs (anti-bacterial)

Echninacea (immune stimulant)

Whole Food Liquid Multivitmain
Supergreens Powder

Kratom (low dose, immune modulation, reduces physical stress)

Saunna (detoxing)

What are your favorites?

Thyme is of the few things i can eat comfortably when i am sick. And it makes me feel better

When I'm sick and feeling ill I don't like to eat or drink anything. I can barely force myself to drink water. I'll climb into bed, wrap myself up in a blanket cocoon/burrito style and go comatose for a couple days. I'm more and more convinced that that's the way to go.

Even when I was a kid I didn't want to eat or drink anything and mom would freak out. Grandpa always told her to relax and "a couple days without food isn't going to kill him."

Feed a cold and starve a fever is I believe how the old saying goes.

Hot soup? Teas? Garlic and ginger?

I was one of those who would get sick every year, and spend almost a whole week in bed feeling death creep upon me - don't get me wrong I was only sick but it really really REALLY felt bad.


Since I've started using the wim hof method daily I never catch a cold or any other viruses

It's easy to do it now, since it's winter here and the water is actually cold enough for cold showers...

What you discovered is called instinct, humans really do have it.
In most instances when the body calls for a fast, doing so will speed healing.
Its a good idea to stay hydrated tho.

Theres a book you might like, its off copyright and free nowadays
'The Hygienic System, Vol. III, Fasting and Sun Bathing, Third Revised Edition' by Herbert M. Shelton
Some of his ideas are out of date now, and he rambles like a grandfather, but its the best book I've ever read on curative fasting. And I've read nearly all of them that were published in english after 1899.

Indeed....

Doing a 3 day fasts stimulates the release of stem cells that regenerate the immune system...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140605141507.htm

Very cool!

Im also in the camp of less is more with the common cold or a viral fever. Drink when your thirsty and eat when your hungry. Btw the idea that excessive water consumption helps to speed up a cold is not verified by science at all.
(This is another topic, but to me it appears the drink 3l a day is some useless propaganda, just drink when your thirsty).

Things like reishi and other immun tonics appear to be best as prevention in my experience. It might differ for people though. When Im really sick most more earthy texture substances (like kratom) make me feel even more ill.
So yes imo do your best to keep your immun system going, before getting sick. Espescially when the flu is going around I have the feeling that sometimes just eating too much, can let the immun guards down for long enough for the virus to take effect-->so it all comes down to listening to the body for me

Being mindful of caffeine intake + sleep deprivation is also critical in prevention...

Being overly stimulated wears down your adrenal system...

And multiple days in a row of sleep deprivation wrecks your immune system pretty hard...

That is almost always how I get sick.... preparing for exams, and over-doing the caffeine w/ too few hours of sleep for 2-3 days in a row...

Hippie Panacea Medicine Shot

Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
Wild local RAW Honey
Garlic
Ginger
Cayenne


Can use Apple Cider Vinegar instead of Lemon.

The Honey must be local so it contains your local pollens... and must be raw so it contains the active enzymes.

The medicinal compounds in garlic only work after being activated via oxidation with air. You want to crush your garlic then let it sit out exposed to oxygen for about 10 minutes before using it. This is a good practice for WHENEVER you use garlic for anything... so you get the most medicine out of it.

^ oddly enough oversleeping can result in me feeling like crap or even have a minor cold upon waking up in some cases, but I'm weird when it comes to sleep. A raw fruit based diet seems to change sleep requirements. But anyways, one of the best ways to prevent getting sick is the good ol' "let thy food be thy medicine" axom... Transitioning slowly to a raw plant based diet high in approximation to what we ate for millions of years in the african tropics (we call it "fruit", but really it's the unimaginably complex biochemical sexual reproductive organs of flowering plants) seems to jive really well with me personally if done right. The studied medicinal benefits of plant foods and medicinal fungi are increasingly off the charts (harmalas as well), which is compounded by the fact that due to generations of eating junk we're probably chronically deficient in a range of things.

Also, combine the turmeric you mentioned with black pepper if you're not already...iirc the piperine in the pepper increases the absorption of the circumin by a huge percentage

Sunshine helps me trememdously, or just vitamin D in the winter but not to the same extent as the sun. I always remember as a kid how I had pneumonia pretty bad. I went to mexico for a family trip and laid in the sun for a while. Immediately felt better upon waking up. If you leave mushrooms in the sun (medicinal or psychedelic i believe) they will synth a decent amount of vitamin D...But in the winter i also take some clean supplements of it in fairly large amounts when i'm not getting much sun. The standard recommendations seem puny

Good list going guys.

I would add:

-Agarikon (anti viral)
-Gypsy mushroom (for viral infections such as flu, seems like it is champ and active ingredients are patented but I have not tried it, difficult to find)
-Chaga
- Elderberry
- Marshmallow (lung issues such as dry cough)
- Simoaruba (diarrhea)
- Lions mane (not technically for sickness but is great for mild concussions which rowdy kids can get sometimes).
- Goldenseal
- Bilberry
- Bone broth (I'm vegetarian for the most part, but for this I make an exception).

There are more. It would be cool to gather the substances mentioned in this thread and make a table, adding what they help with, active known compounds, extraction method or ways to take it, dose, how to grow, known research papers, and personal testimonials. At that point we would be close to writing a book, a huge project. Doubt we could finish it with our busy lives.

And +1 to the fast. My mom had a cough that had been going on for months. Went away after a 3 day fast. Was an amazing thing.

Have you read the book "Return to the Brain of Eden"?

One medicine that is largely neglected these days but has been a valued medicine for thousands of years across hundreds of cultures is the fruit of roses, particularly undomesticated or scantly domesticated ones like Rosa canina, R. roxburghii, non-ornamental R. rugosa, etc.
R. canina is common and R. roxburghii is the most cold hardy wild rose that can be trained into a small tree, it is used in china to prevent illness and extend life.
The fresh rose hips (fruit) are loaded with vitamin C and antioxidant polyphenols and has been demonstrated, many times, to have immune stimulating properties. This last fall I saw hints in the scientific data that it would be a bad flu season so I hiked into the forest and harvested a load of R. canina fruit before it turned soft, then crushed each one and froze them. When people started getting the flu I chopped up and 20-minute simmered 6 or 8 and drank the filtered tea for breakfast, with no food. I kept that up until I finished taking care of my mother when she had the flu for 2 weeks. I never got sick.
One good example of the vast store of scientific data on medicinal rose fruit is this (1 mb) paper 'Therapeutic Applications of Rose Hips from Different Rosa Species'.

Its not quite what you had in mind, but PFAF has information on 7,000+ edible, medicinal, and otherwise useful plants including known medicinal properties, food uses, plant hardiness, size, and growth parameters. Its a fun place for the ethnobot to get lost in.

Rhonda Patrick was talking... I think in one of her Joe Rogan eppearances, how important it is to utilize physical stressors like exercise, hot yoga, saunas, and cold shock therapy, as a treatment against psychological stress like work or school related chronic stress.

It goes something like: the chronic stress keeps triggering the inflammatory stress response, but since there's no real end to the stress the counter-regulatory response is never initiated. And by inducing physical stress like HIIT you trigger that counter-regulatory response to reduce inflammation and all that dopamine jazz.

I've always gone for a 40 or 50 mile bike ride when I feel too stressed out and when I get back and for a couple days I walk around feeling like you could smash my foot with a sledge hammer and I'd be all "Oh no, I'm sorry I didn't pull my foot away fast enough, totally my bad."

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha


I think he may have heard of it.

It all really depends upon the individual and their particular symptoms.

If the goal is to return to a state of homeostasis, some re-balancing is in order.

If the majority of symptoms are "heat signs", e.g. red, swollen body parts, such as bloodshot eyes, bright red, swollen throat, any more-than-usual redness in the complexion of the skin, fever without chills, etc., it is advantageous to ingest cooling, and in extreme cases, very cold engertic herbs. Chuan Xin Lian, aka Andrographis paniculata, aka Kalmegh, is one of the most powerful anti-viral substances we have avialable to us humans. Rather overlooked or little-known to most Westerners, Chuan Xin Lian has a pretty cold energetic and does a wonderful job at clearing up "hot" viral symptoms.

This is just one example, albeit one of the best ones, of a "hot" symptom syndrome being ameliorated by utilizing a "cold" herb. Hot situations often can be exacerbated by employing very hot herbs such as garlic, oregano, dry ginger (fresh ginger is not "hot" and is considered one of the most balanced herbs to use for anything), etc.

On the other hand, if one is experiencing "cold signs", e.g. chills, pale complexion, pale membranes in throat/mouth/nose, the utilization of herbs with hot energetics is appropriate and very beneficial.

Often times, in the course of a viral load, one may need to switch from cooling to heating herbs (or vice versa) at some point because the symptom syndrome changes as our bodies process the viral load.

The principle of herbal (and food for that matter) energetics can be applied wisely according to body type and personality type to better achieve homeostasis in a given sentient being dealing with any health issue. It is an entire science unto itself and takes a little getting used to. However in my 35+ years of practicing and studying herbal healing I have found that using plant energetics to match symptoms and/or body type is a much more practical way of getting the desired results as opposed to using biochemistry (which is indeed a useful science, but not as practical when dealing with individual beings with individual energetics).

Thanks for that elaboration. Very interesting. I also have the feeling that just looking up on the web which herbs for which disease is supposed to help doesnt really do it for me. The principle of just stuffing various herbs or substances because of their supposedly phsyiologicaly trial proven effects, down our throats, often seems like overload for the body to me, or not adequate for a certain situation. Bidy intelligence might be best, but knowledge of TCM and Ayurveda comes next, in the way they present remedies in a very finely tuned (to a specific situation and person) way.

It is also interesting to note, that in ayurveda it is advised against for example mixing more then 1 or 2 supplements into a meal or smoothie, because those often are too hard to assimilate for the body in excessive combination, and cannot be absorbed properly anyway (CosmicLion )

TCM and Ayurveda both take into account "body intelligence", that is what is so brilliant about those two systems.

Additionally, both acknowledge that the correct combination of herbal medicines, when applied with care towards the individual's present situation (symptoms) AND their body/personality type will mitigate the situation with the least amount of side effects. Herbal combinations are important because each substance helps balance out the other's aspects/energetics, and you might be surprised how effective a combination of say 10-20 herbs can be when applied with appropriate consideration to the total energetics of the situation.

The old physicians took everything into account. The "whole picture", so to speak. Simply observing the color of your tongue and the color and thickness of its coating, for example, can tell you A LOT about the present state of your stomach and intestines.

Remember, without going into modern vitamins, amino acids, enzymes and other isolated nutrients removed from their natural matrix, herbs ARE food. They just aren't food that we'd necessarily think about eating without some processing due to their woodiness, bitterness, etc.

I think this is the one Doc Buxin was talking about... but figured it deserved it's own post:

Astragalus Root (Huang Qi)

It is used for everything from the common cold to cancers to advanced level immune disorders and even HIV...

I've dieted this plant before, it is EXTREMELY potent... Can clear up just about anything...

It is one of those plants that I am afraid to use with any kind of regularity as I don't want to build a resistance to it, even though there is no proof this actually happens.

I want to be able to call on it when I might need it when I am older and possibly have more serious disease. It is very special.