Bronchitis (& Other Infections)

The more I learn, the more I strive to avoid antibiotics at all costs.

I got bronchitis the first time when I was 15, and my parents took me straight to the doctor and I took my course of antibiotics.

I got bronchitis again when I was 22. I didn't want antibiotics, but I didn't do anything besides let time pass to wait for it to clear up on it's own. I didn't rest much either because at the time I had a 10 month old into everything and my husband was out of town.  It turned into pneumonia within a couple weeks, and I broke down and got a prescription for antibiotics.

The pain associated with pneumonia is unbelievable. I lost my resolve to not take antibiotics when I felt like I was going to die every time I coughed.

Well, here I am, three years later. I have a really bad cough again, and I'm doing everything I can to kick it before it gets worse.
Here's what I've done so far, and why:

-Rosemary essential oil- Read about it HERE, and click HERE for a great recipe for homemade vicks vaporub. I boil a pot of water, add 1 drop of eucalyptus oil and 2 or 3 drops rosemary oil, lean over it and tent my head with a towel. I've been doing this every night before bed and not only does it help me breath better and give me a night mostly free of coughing, its also very very relaxing.

-Colloidal Silver

-Homeopathic Remedy: I went to Earth Fare and matched up my symptoms to "natrum sulphuricum". Homeopathic medicine essentially tell your body, "Hey! Here's what going on. Fix it!". If I did my symptom matching right then my body will react to the homeopathics and kick into gear to fight whatever I have.  When I was picking it was between this one and another one, so I do hope I picked the right one. If it doesn't work I may have to go back in 5-6 days to get the other one.

-Allicin, a specific extract of garlic. Allimax brand, to be specific. It's the only brand I have confidence in. Allicin is a very fragile component of garlic and is easily lost in processing, and this company has got it right.

-Fermented cod liver oil/butter oil from the only brand I trust: Blue Ice from greenpasture.org. This has astounding levels of vitamins A & D and is an awesome immune system booster. I take it all the time, but I've been upping my dose for the sickness.

-Sleep more, drink lots of water, and take deep breaths often. This basic stuff is easy to forget when you're busy trying to cure yourself with natural remedies. Sometime I have to be reminded to just give my body what it needs and sit back and rest.

So, that's it. We'll see how it goes.

UPDATE:
It worked! The cough cleared within about a week of this post with only the treatments and supplements I mentioned. I feel that the allimax was the biggest contributed, but there's no way to be sure. I've since learned that eucalyptus essential oil naturally dilates the bronchial tube, so that is a great thing to mix in with the rosemary essential oil.

Chlorinated City Water

Today I placed an order (on amazon, of course!) for a Sprite shower head/chlorine filter. I've been doing a lot of learning about water lately, and I'm not liking what I find.

Did you know that filtering the chlorine out of your drinking water is not enough? It's not even a start! Skin readily absorbs chlorine (like the chlorine in water treated by the city), especially when it's warm because it opens your pores.  It also vaporizes.

So this morning while I took a long hot shower and enjoyed the steam. Yeah. I was absorbing chlorine and inhaling it's toxic fumes.

I'm afraid to bathe the kids until the shower filter arrives!

I also found out that vitamin c somehow neutralizes chlorine (and even more dangerous chloramines, which we don't have in our water- I checked) and I bought some vitabath vitamin c tablets for bath time. That way we don't have to spend 10 minutes filling up the bath tub with the shower head.