How to break the cycle of Cough & Cold and Treat it Yourself? (Part 1)

 

Can you correlate with this story of cough?

One person in your family catches cold.

Once it enters in your family, this cold and cough stays in your house for many weeks….

From that person, turn by turn everyone in the family gets cough and cold.

 

In today’s time

there are more people who are aware of the drawback of

taking too many allopathic medicines for very long period of time.

This is also true for very common diseases like common cold.

The mothers, especially are concerned

to give these allopathic medicines for their small kids.

This is because we have seen that these small kids become

victim of cold and cough very quickly and too frequently.

And thus, the kids are taking more of the allopathic medicines

and they have higher chances of getting affected by their adverse effects.

 

At the same time, more and more people are now

becoming aware of the fact that there are some alternative ways

which you can try before opting for taking those allopathic medicines…

 

The first thing that come to your mind

as home remedy for cold and cough is GINGER.

It may be fresh ginger or dried ginger powder also known as sonth.

My grand mother used to use it.

My mother used to use it.

My mother in law is using it

I am using it.

Hopefully my future daughter in law will also use it .

Ginger or sonth is an excellent remedy for cough and cold beyond any doubt.

The Good news is, sometimes ginger works

The Bad news is, sometimes this ginger doesn’t work.

Why is it so that sometimes ginger works and sometimes it doesn’t?

 

You should understand the symptoms first.

Once you understand the symptoms, you will know which herbs to use

Why do we cough?

• Your cough is Your body’s attempt to remove the uncommon substances

from your lungs like – mucus or other irritants.  &,

• You also cough due to dryness or irritation. Routinely we call it a dry cough

So, first of all we must know which type of cough we are dealing with.

If you are not aware of type of cough, chances are that

you may be using wrong type of herbal medicine and then,

instead of curing your disease,

you may be suppressing your disease

 

Your cough can be broadly divided into 3 types:

• Dry cough
• Productive cough, &
• Unproductive cough

1)Dry cough:

How to know if you have a dry cough?

It is a continuous spasmodic cough without any mucous

You lie down to sleep at night and you start coughing, and then you can’t stop.

There is no mucus

and it can keep you awake for the whole night.

How to cure your dry cough?

You should address this in 2 different ways

1^st–  address your dry tissue state by moistening the dry tissues

2^nd – stop your coughing

Which herb to use for dry cough?

• Demulcent- it sooths your sore throat, address the dryness and irritation.

Here our well-known ginger/sonth won’t help.

On the contrary, it will increase the irritation in your throat.

So, what should you use instead?

Marshmellow is a good example of demulcent.

Use marshmallow root tea during the day.

 

• Antispasmodic –it relaxes your coughing reflex.

California poppy is a good example of antispasmodic.

 

That’s all for today

Next week we will discuss about-

• How to know if your have productive cough or nonproductive cough?

& how to cure them.

• You must know what is your limitation.

So, we will discuss when you must stop self-medicating and

see your doctor for your cough and cold.

So, now onwards you know that you should not

use ginger if you have dry cough. It won’t help.

 

Providing simple solutions

for the complexities of life

Dr Bhumita Makwana

Your Dietitian & Cosmetic Clinician