what's everyone's favorite natural home remedy for common cold?

it is starting to go around my family and friend group.. eek! my nose is starting to run and I don't want it to turn into full blown sickness.. help!

Echinacea, vitamin C, hot drinks and a woolly hat, before the cold hits.

Hot lemon juice , honey diluted with Irish whisky oh and going to bed with a book alone

David

I'm a fan of doing an hour-plus intense cardio workout when I start to feel sick. In the past, my routine was to watch Braveheart (177 minutes) while on an elliptical machine at the start of any cold. An hour of running can raise your body temp up to 103 degrees which also happens to be around the sweet spot for kicking your immune system into high gear.

Even if it doesn't help with the cold, you end up getting a lot of exercise.

I have an essential oil blend I put in the diffuser or on a scarf/bandana/buff. It is from Rocky mountain oils or native American nutritional, purify and flu time. The list of oils is too long to type on the tablet.

Ginger, any way you have it. A tsp of powdered ginger from the spice rack mixed with just enough honey to make a paste and let it melt in your mouth. Fresh is better, but anything is better than nothing.

Ginger - take it daily. It is anti everything bad so it's good for preventive methods and treatment.
Same with Garlic.
Use them fresh, use them in cooking, take a capsule everyday for easy use.
Drink lots and lots of water.
Thieves oil is common where I live but I've never used it myself

Thieves Oil Recipe

Chicken soup with lots of garlic
keep your head warm
lots of water
REST!

Lava cider. (fire cider)

Osha, just chew on a piece of root for an hour or so and a hot toddy right before bed.

Vitamin C!!! A while ago I started reading some Linus Pauling, he was a bio chemist, colleague and friend of Einstein and the only person to ever win two Nobel Prizes by himself. So a pretty smart guy, I assume and good hearted too. That led to this other guy Dr. Frederick Robert Klenner who was a medical doctor in the 50's who treated all kinds of illnesses with very high doses (this is the important part) of Vitamin C. If your interested in the facts, both have published numerous studies of the effects which when read kinda make you wonder if all the money made off cold and flu drugs caused a plot to distract us from the power of an un-patentable vitamin.? Who knows, probably so. Basically, all that research theorizes that we all used to live closer to the tropics and as we spread out from the tropics we got further away from rich sources of Vitamin C, one of the few vitamins that do not store long in our bodies and we are always in need of replenishing it, as many of life's functions use it up and thus we are all living in a state just barely post scurvy.
Here's a few things it does to help you be happy and healthy:
-Vitamin C strengthens connective tissue thereby increasing resistance to viral invasion
-Vitamin C strengthens the immune system, metabolizes free radicals and in high doses is a powerful anti-viral
-Vitamin C helps adrenal glands synthesize a variety of steroid hormones which process adrenaline and noradrenaline preventing adrenal exhaustion, also preventing cell and hormone oxidation which prevents cancers and viruses from attacking oxidized cells
-Leukocytes(white blood cells) actively seek and transport Vitamin C to damaged tissue
-Leukocytes also require Vitamin C for making globulins and for phagocytosis (ingesting bacteria and other invaders)
-Leukocytes are so hungry for Vitamin C that when too little is present they will retain enough to cause scurvy in other tissues
-the lens of the eye requires Vitamin C and it is known to prevent cataracts
-Vitamin C destroys histamine, prevents premature seperation of the placenta, dissolves cholesterol, pulls calcium from calcium plaques in arteries, detoxifies the body of heavy metals, and is essential for synthesis and maintenance of collagen
-Vitamin C has been proven to fight over 30 major diseases including: pneumonia, arthritis, cancer, leukemia, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, diabetes, MS, and chronic fatigue.
-Vitamin C is one of the safest substances you can put in the human body and is completely safe and effective in extremely high doses.(medical studies have treated cancer patients with 1,000,000 mg/day intravenously with only slight discomfort, nausea, and headache as the side effects)
If you are pregnant or on other medications consult your doctor first.

I personally started taking about 6-8 grams of Vitamin C daily three years ago, I take (2) 1000mg pills in the morning, at lunch, and at dinner and sometimes more before I go to bed) and more throughout the day if I feel a tickle in my throat or am around other sick people. I don't take it all at once because it makes me gassy if I do and then I'm no fun to be around. (In high doses it's also the most healthy laxative you can readily and quickly find at pharmacies) Here's the results, I haven't gotten sick, not a cold, not a flu, nothing in three years!!! I try my best to be a pretty healthy person, I exercise, work outside, eat tons of veggies and grow most of my food and have for about 8 years. But before I started taking what I at first thought was a lot of Vitamin C, but now know is just enough. I still got sick two to three times a year. But not since the "C" nothing, nada!! I have no explanation except the "C" I'm still around sick people all the time in cold and flu season. Give it a shot and tell me what you think.
If you're already getting sick you probably can't take too much, but spread it out through the day, try 2 grams an hour, you'll start feeling better by the end of the day when you would normally be feeling worse. I recently visited my folks for the holidays and guess what? My dad had the flu, full on bad flu. He was too deep in to be saved but my mom was getting the first signs of it and I convinced her to try taking 2 grams an hour. At the end of the day she had taken 20 grams and no longer felt bad, she got a little gassy that day but come the next she was back to 100%. We all stayed on the C pretty heavy until my dad was better and not my mom, my wife, or I got the flu! Even though we were all trapped in a small sealed up winter house with the sick guy!
I'm sticking with it and spreading the good word. The soapbox was appreciated and wishes of good health to all.

Hey everyone! My trick is to get that body temp up. Plus Lots Of Water.

I have also been looking more and more about probiotics. They seem to be more about just health and digestive health but lots of people feel to get sick less well taken. I started looking into fermented drinks or pops/soda that was mentioned in a few of the podcasts. So I am trying out kefir at the end of the week.

Is it possible that probiotics and the bad guys that make you sick be like aerobic and anaerobic soil??? Sorry if that is a bit of a tangent. happy new year everyone.

Hey Cassie, one of the reasons we all get more cold and flu issues in the winter in N America is the lack of sunlight! Old Scandanavian mama's knew how to protect the family, they forced cod liver oil down them! Now we can take vitamin D 3 supplements in the winter instead, to decrease the severity and length of these winter curses..

I absolutely agree with Asher Gray. Vitamin C is the way to go. I take 2 gms in the morning and 2 at night along with a Coral Calcium and a few tablets of Vitamin D3 every day. The combination works synergistically and helps your body get the most out of the C. I'm only 120 lbs so I don't need a higher dose and I am a very healthy eater and I rarely have anything makes me sick.

IF something has dampered my immune system (like too much sugar, some kind of toxin, or a messload of stress) and I start to feel anything coming on I up the C to 3 or 4 gms of the time release Vitmin C along with the Coral Calcium and D3 every 4 hours even through the night if I wake up. If I get gassy I drop it back a gram or so, if it needs more I up it. I listen to my body to let me know which way to go. But I keep up the dosing every 4 hours for at least 24 hours then drop it back to every 6 and then back to my twice a day over a few days. Don't stop the higher doses cold turkey, taper it off.

The most important aspect is that it truly is a situation of "A stitch in time saves 9". If I can catch the telltale signs early and take a high dose of C, calcium and D3 right away, I can stop it in its tracks. Again taper off, But if I happen to be out or away from C and it takes a bit of a hold before I get there. I need way more for much longer to kick it out.

For sore throats that sometimes come on. I also use Oil of Oregano. If you have any kind of sore throat it can taste pretty nasty and feel aweful for a few moments but it sure kicks the sore throat out fast. Especially when you add the C regime.

Lastly a soak in a hot tub with a cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide added does wonders.

Unless there is an emotional issue that I need to address that usually kicks any illness away. And for Emotional issues that need addressing I use EFT. http://www.thetappingsolution.com Sometimes if I don't have C handy tapping can stop it in its track too.

Before I understood about C. calcium and D3 if I caught a cold it could last for a week or two. Now even if I get a right runny nose it is gone in a day or two.

Great timing, was about to post and ask for remedies for colds and sore throats. Currently laid up with a nasty dose of cold, so will go and try as many of these as I have ingredients for! Just remembered my normal trick for sore throats - gargle with warm water and vinegar, always helps, kicking myself for not doing it sooner. A saltwater gargle also helps.

I agree with vitamins c & d, BUT they need to be natural. Synthetic don't work the same, can even act as a negative as the displace the natural from food.

The only sure remedy I know of is ... patience !!
Lot's of rest, stay hydrated, stay warm, eat good hot food (chicken soup), and exercise ... gets the body temperature up, cycles liquid through the body, and it leads to rest.
Don't fight the symptoms ... that's the body's immune system fighting the virus.
-Tom

I ran across this old thread https://permies.com/t/19864/medicinal-herbs/guess-cold-home-remedies It has a lot of good suggestions also.

This is what I usually use:

1 tsp fresh ginger
1 tsp fresh garlic
1 tsp honey
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup water

Combine and boil for 30 seconds. Drink as quickly as you can (without burning yourself) and then go to sleep.

Works really well, especially at the beginning of a cold. Taste is pretty strong but you get used to it, and you can always add more honey. I make sure I use my food processor so the chunks of ginger and garlic are small

Heat destroys the medicinal properties of garlic, ONLY USE IT FRESH. Probably the same goes for ginger. I actually hate putting heat on ANYTHING medicinal except were absolutely necessary (barks mainly).

Fiona Martin wrote:Great timing, was about to post and ask for remedies for colds and sore throats. Currently laid up with a nasty dose of cold, so will go and try as many of these as I have ingredients for! Just remembered my normal trick for sore throats - gargle with warm water and vinegar, always helps, kicking myself for not doing it sooner. A saltwater gargle also helps.

I haven't had a bad cold for years, and as soon as I feel something coming on I do the saltwater gargle as well. Anecdotal evidence at best of course.

One of my former teachers explained a cold as indicating a lack of internal heat, according to traditional Chinese medicine theory. Her prescription was cognac and steak, both of which is supposed to add internal heat. I've tried it and while I don't know if anything changed with my internal heat, I certainly felt better afterwards.

It differ from region to region. What my favorite is to have one hot chicken soup.. And my personal favourite one is chicken manchow soup. It has been widely used against Cold, flu and sore throat. Herbs like ginger, garlic and chilli are used to make it.

Ginger has been widely used from old aged against symptoms like cold, flu and sore throat. Chilli used in this soup ensure that your nose start running and mucus starts moving.

Herbs like cilantro leaves and bamboo shoots also provide the essential minerals. To heat your body against these cold like symptoms try Chicken manchow soup once in a day.

Back in the early 70s a major magazine surveyed 1000 doctors for what they took for a cold. The overwhelming majority said antihistamines and bourbon.    I see no reason to question the experts,  but I do add in in Vitamin C.

My remedy for colds is a paste of hot smelly stuff, washed down with a hot toddy, and then take to bed early. Anecdotally, it works very well for the members of this household.

At first sign of anything sinister, I will make a paste of crushed clove of garlic, grated fresh ginger, cinnamon and cayenne pepper mixed into a spoon of honey. I usually let it sit about 15 minutes after mixing, for the allicin compound in the garlic to really develop. While it is sitting, I make the chaser.  

I love a good hot toddy, and even when I was a child that's what my family used to make up for us if we got really sick. Whiskey warmed through with a spoon of honey and a squeeze of lemon. My husband is from Yugoslavia, and they basically have the identical drink with their local ingredients. Serbian "tea" is plum brandy mixed with sugar or honey and served as a hot remedy to your illness. Hah. Apparently east or west, seems like most Europeans use their national drink as the cure to what ails you.

I will swallow the big spoon of hot, spiced sadness, and then it gets chased with a sip of warm drink ( i do mean slow, too. After the spiced garlic on the tongue, hot whiskey burrrnnns all the way down lol). Slow sipping while relaxing and then as soon as I am done the drink it's off to bed.

I feel like the garlic, ginger, and cinnamon work as microbials. The cinnamon and cayenne helps get the blood moving to facilitate the body's immune response, and the hot whiskey relaxes and helps sleep, so the extra rest helps the immune system do its thing. The lemon adds vitamin C.  I don't have a lot science to backup my remedy, but it works for us.

A cold adult beverage.......and a good nights sleep with my CPAP.
Since getting a CPAP (3 years running now!) I have enjoyed NO colds. Prior to that I was a snot magnet.
I go to bed with achy throat, swollen glands, sinusitis, and wake up clear headed, feeling fine.
I also try not to work to exhaustion (the biggest cause of cold initiation IMHO.).

It a pain in the hiney to get a CPAP, a REALLY stupid doctors visit, and a rapacious overcharge for truly simple equipment by a "professional" who's main purpose in life is to make you a repeat customer for life, paying thousands of times the cost of manufacture for filter, nosepieces, headgear etc.
If you get the prescription you can take it to a refurbished dealer and save 70%......or befriend a nursing home worker (and ask them to backdoor a cadaver's unit!) or help your old aunty clean up after your chubby uncles passing (or vice versa!)
Sites galore offer input on programming them and and you can buy the filter, nosepieces and headgear off Ebay or Amazon. Start low and work up slowly, remember the thing is not a ventilator, nor an iron lung, its supposed to ASSIST not breath for you!

Also FWIW the "Ozone / U.V. Cleaners advertised so vigorously are a scam, if you read  deep into their own literature, they freely admit there has never been a case of someone catching a virus from their own equipment.....if you get a used unit clean it thoroughly / wait out the dry life of a virus and bobs your uncle!

I usually drink a lot of raspberry jam tea, this is an excellent help.

Asher Gray wrote:Vitamin C!!! Basically, all that research theorizes that we all used to live closer to the tropics and as we spread out from the tropics we got further away from rich sources of Vitamin C, one of the few vitamins that do not store long in our bodies and we are always in need of replenishing it, as many of life's functions use it up and thus we are all living in a state just barely post scurvy.

 

Linus Pauling was a brilliant scientist, and well deserved his Nobel prizes in physics; however, I believe that he was mistaken about the mega doses of vitamins. Recommended daily values exist for a reason. One of the paleontology stories I found most fascinating was that the fossil hominid, Lucy, died of vitamin C poisoning. (Many pathologies leave evidence on the bones, which can be 'read' from a fossil.) Probably her troop scavenged a carnivore carcass -- such as a lion or hyena -- and Lucy, not knowing any better, ate the liver. Like everything in this world, vitamin C is deadly toxic in overdose, and I would be wary of any vitamin advice that recommends many times the established daily value.

A great way to strengthen the respiratory and immune systems is using steam inahalation.
You just add a few drops of essential oils to a bowl filled with hot water,
then cover your head and the bowl with a towel and inhale the fumes deeply a few times.
then uncover your head for fresh air and repeat 4-5 times.
It opens up the airway and when using the right essential oils it does miracles.

I recommend the Benzoin, Lavender, Revansara and Myrtle essential oils.

I know a chef from Haiti who swears by ginger tea -- fresh ginger, peeled and boiled for 15 minutes. I haven't had the opportunity to try it, but it really should scare the Hades out of any bug.

Homemade chicken soup, definitely.

UCLA did a study on why chicken soup is so effective - https://exploreim.ucla.edu/wellness/an-inside-scoop-on-the-science-behind-chicken-soup-and-the-common-cold/

I like to use the whole chicken less the neck and organs.  Add shiitake mushrooms to bump up the interferon count (which apparent combats COVID: https://www.wionews.com/india-news/interferon-insufficiency-is-the-reason-why-coronavirus-is-deadly-for-some-patients-330858).

Douglas writes

I know a chef from Haiti who swears by ginger tea

 I love ginger tea, and will chew on the ginger afterward; it gets mild after soaking.  One of my children suffers from anxiety, and we've found that it's great to quell an upcoming panic attack.

Jason Hernandez wrote: Linus Pauling was a brilliant scientist, and well deserved his Nobel prizes in physics; however, I believe that he was mistaken about the mega doses of vitamins... Like everything in this world, vitamin C is deadly toxic in overdose, and I would be wary of any vitamin advice that recommends many times the established daily value.

Everything I've read about vitamin C is that our bodies get rid of it in excess and don't store it.  We each have to do our own research and live with the consequences .  For me, I'm on HeartTech, which is Pauling's formula.  It's working well for me; YMMV.  Note that vitamin C must have something to bind to.  Pauling recommended lysine and proline.

Thyme tea is excellent for everything dealing with respiratory problems. [It used to be used against whooping cough in children].
Elderberry and aronia teas or syrups with vitamin C are also excellent to build up your immunity. Since you need more liquids anyway, have a batch going at all times and keep sipping. For food, don't overtax your system and listen to your body. If it says eat, then eat. If it says skip this meal, then skip it.
Rest, rest, rest. Mustard cataplasms that my mom was famous for pull the blood away from the chest cavity and bring it to the surface but don't keep that cataplasm too long: it will peel your skin off!
I like to go to bed with a hot water bottle. That really relaxes me and allows me to get a good night's rest.
Other than that, isolate yourself for the sake of your family [and others] and pamper yourself. I've been able to turn the tide in 3 days. I'm growing elderberry bushes and aronia bushes to make syrups with their fruit. That really helps. I wanted to make gummies [for the ease of it], but my attempts didn't turn well, so it is syrups. Thick syrups, with reduced aronia and elderberry fruit.

1:1:1 ratio of dried ginger powder, lemon juice and honey in a mug (1 tsp. each) and add hot/boiling water and drink.  The ginger has sort of a peppery feeling on a sore throat which the honey seems to help hold in place a little longer.  Ooh, it feels so good and within a day all the green or yellow mucous turns clear...it's miraculous stuff!  I don't even like ginger, but I love this stuff!  I use just plain bottled lemon juice from the store and the dried ginger from the spice rack.  

Your kids will hate me for this...because my kids do.  We have three things that we do.  1. Vitamin C tablets.  2.  Crushed garlic on crackers, when one of my daughters was a toddler she would just chew straight garlic cloves.  3. This is the bad one.  I grow white horehound in my back yard.  At the end of the year, or whenever I need it I cut the plant down. Then shove all of the plant into a pot and boil it for quite some time.  Then, I add in honey and tumeric.  Then I freeze it in small cubes (smaller than a standard ice cube).  Then whenever anyone starts to get sick, we put some in a cup with hot chocolate or hot lemonade (with real lemon juice) and make them drink it.  Yes it is that bad, without the hot chocolate/lemonade it is barely drinkable.  I have no idea why anyone would make candy out of horehound.  Anyway, it helps with chest congestion.

Jason Tuller wrote:  1. Vitamin C tablets.  2.  Crushed garlic on crackers, when one of my daughters was a toddler she would just chew straight garlic cloves.  3. This is the bad one.  I grow white horehound in my back yard.  .

Mine isn't a DIY remedy, however, it is in my Home and it is a Remedy!
I start taking Zinc Tabs when I feel a cold coming on or when I'm going to be in a large group of people in Winter.
I also take Airborne Tabs when the cold comes on and that seems to perk me up and knock down the cold.

My wife made a concoction of garlic and honey.  I started to get a cough a few weeks ago and started taking a couple spoonfuls of it a few times a day.  Stopped the cough in its tracks.  Couple other family members got the same thing and it hung on for weeks.  They did not want to take the mixture.
I found that I really like the garlic now after it has been soaking in the honey mixture for awhile.

Yeah, that isn't going to be happening, but it makes perfect sense, IF you go far enough.  

Developing a temperature goes a long ways to curing more than mere colds.  As my pappy learned, from a lot of research, when he got cancer, then going on to stick around for another thirty years, a lot of people survived. A HIGH percentage of the survivors developed high temps from hard work, or that cold or flu.  

John Wolfram wrote:I'm a fan of doing an hour-plus intense cardio workout when I start to feel sick. In the past, my routine was to watch Braveheart (177 minutes) while on an elliptical machine at the start of any cold. An hour of running can raise your body temp up to 103 degrees which also happens to be around the sweet spot for kicking your immune system into high gear.

Even if it doesn't help with the cold, you end up getting a lot of exercise.

Elderberry syrup at the first sign of symptoms. I take Vitamin C and Vitamin D regularly. Drinking any kind of hot tea or lemon water if I get stuffed up.