Help with Cold/Flu - PEP BB medicine.straw.cold

Here is my submission for the Natural Medicine Aspect - Straw - Quinn List - Help with Cold/Flu BB.

M06 (pseudonym) came to me with a mild chest cold that she had been experiencing for a couple of days.  Symptoms included a tight chest and a non-productive cough.

Recommendations:
    - Behavioral: avoid running errands or being outside while it is raining
    - Food as medicine: mullein leaf infusion - brewed fresh
    - Concoctions:  mullein leaf oil
             apply mullein oil to chest and cover with cloth or saran wrap to protect clothing if desired
   
 - Description of success (including, but not limited to)
     - What your friend actually did - mullein oil on chest and mullein tea
     - How well it worked - great: chest tightness dissappeared by next moring
     - How long it took to see results - next moring

To document the completion of the BB, I have provided the following photos to supplement the above information:
 - Me with friend on the first meeting
 - Bonus: brewing Mullein leaf tea
 - Me with friend (giving a thumbs up) on your last meeting

Pseudonym: Roo

Roo caught a cold. It stayed fairly mild, and congestion was her worst symptom. She also had a runny nose but couldn't tell me what other symptoms she had. The first evening, her description was, "I feel bad."

Behavioral: Roo is young and highly receptive, so I carefully chose my words when talking about the herbs and medicine. I explained how they gave her immune system a boost, to help her body heal itself.
Congestion interrupted her sleep a couple of times the first night, and I helped her sit up to sleep. We cuddled and rested as needed.

Food as medicine: Roo is opinionated about what she's willing to take by mouth. Her appetite remained good, and she drank a few small bowls of chicken broth along with her regular meals. She refused my normal teas for colds but asked for lemon balm tea, so we went with that.

I started giving Roo my homemade elderberry herbal syrup and cell salts at the first sign of symptoms. As symptoms progressed, I gave her homeopathic symptom-relief cold medicine since she refused other recommendations. For about 12 hours (halfway through the first night of the cold), she looked and sounded rough. After that, she was ready to run around and dance with occasional bouts of rest. She was really annoyed by the mucus, and that lasted for about 4 days.

Herb came home from work feeling under the weather. He complained about a dry cough and some sinus issues which combined he thought were causing him to have a sore throat.

I suggested:
Echinacea tincture
Pine needle tea for vitamin C
Mullein steam with a towel over his head to keep the heat and herbal goodness where he can breathe it in
Mullein tea

What he did:
Echinacea tincture
Refused the pine needle tea but did take some pine needle tincture (I don't have much left...)
Refused the mullein steam and refused the mullein tea but did take the mullein tincture internally and rubbed some on his chest.

I was told if it didn't have alcohol he wasn't going to take it 🤦‍♀️ no teas or rubs and he doesn't like salves or lotions. Tinctures only.

He didn't cough anymore that night and said his throat was feeling better too. I would say he got quick relief.

He stayed on this regimen for 5 days.

Pseudonym - Friend R

Issue - He was coming down with something in January. He had a sore throat, cough, tiredness. He went to the doctor who said he had either a cold or bronchitis. When he contacted me, he had been sick a few days. The doctor gave him an antibiotic, but he also wanted to know what natural remedies could help.

Suggestions - I suggested 3 things
1. Take 1 tbsp of fire cider twice a day for 5 days, then go down to once a day (I made this - see fire cider BB permies.com/p/2850350)
2. Drink bone broth or have bone broth soup every day for a few days
3. Drink mullein leaf tea to bring up the phloem

What he did
- He said the fire cider helped the most, he was faithful to take 1 tbsp twice a day. He said he felt better the very next day!
- He did drink chicken bone broth a few times.
- He did not drink the tea.

He is still taking the fire cider once a day to keep sickness at bay. It's powerful stuff!

Kevin Harbin wrote:Minimum requirements:
  - Help your friend with their Cold/flu problem
  - Refer to them by a number or pseudonym that you will continue to use for that friend throughout the Natural Medicine badge

To document completion of the BB, provide the following:
  - Your friend's pseudonym
  - Describe the issue your friend is struggling with
      - Symptoms
      - Duration
      - Severity
      - Medical diagnosis (if any)
 - Your suggestions for relief (including, but not limited to)
     - Behavioral
     - Food as medicine
     - Concoctions  
 - Description of success (including, but not limited to)
     - What your friend actually did
     - How well it worked
     - How long it took to see results
 - Picture of you with friend on the first meeting
 - Picture of you with friend (giving a thumbs up) on your last meeting

Patient #1 was feeling so under the weather that he took the second half of the day off from work. This was serious; Patient #1 historically always works through illness; the severity was high. He had symptoms of congestion, low-energy, and a cough. I measured him to see if he had a fever and it was normal.

My suggestions for relief:
--I urged him to take a nap, drink clear fluids, use a netti pot, avoid dairy and to decrease mucus in his system.
--I added a tablespoon of my homemade thyme syrup to every cup of peppermint tea that I made him.
--I also prescribed increasing his immune support supplements: echinacea, zinc, and vitamin c.
--I made chicken soup for lunch and curry for dinner to provide additional medicinal herbs like garlic, onion, turmeric, cayenne, oregano, and echinacea.

Description of success:
Patient #1 took a nap, drank 3 cups of my tea concoction and 1 cups of broth after chicken soup at lunch. He took 2 rounds of supplements. He refused to do the netti pot and sucked on cough drops. He felt better by the following morning to return to work but had a lingering cough that lasted 3 days.