For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 07, 2019

If only there were a modern-day “snake oil”-like concoction to heal all your ailments.

This is entirely too true. There used to be a wonderful throat medicine that worked in seconds. Some group, probably sponsored by other drug companies, forced them to remove the alcohol from the formula. Now that brand is no better than any other. Home remedies still work very well. If you have a sore throat, make some sage tea. I just throw a heaping teaspoonful of sage in the basket of my Mr. Coffee, along with coffee, tea, or the flavor you like best. That makes enough for the whole family. By the time you drink half of a cup, your sore throat is gone.

I don’t bother with combination drugs. I get the basics and combine them myself in a shot glass (multiple pills). Get a decongestant, antihistamine, pain/fever reducer, and cough suppressant. It’s often far cheaper. It allows you to also buy the alcohol of your choice, and to your own taste. :)

… ones the medications will not keep

It’s all just trash. Today, the best medicine is food that´s high in vitamin C and some real honey.

My 13-year-old daughter has had a horrible cough. Although we have DayQuil and NyQuil, she researched online for a more holistic suppressant & found warm milk with honey. She’s been having that.

Personally, I start eating one or two navel oranges a day in September right through to March and don’t get a cold ! ! ! !

As soon as I think I am coming down with a cold, I start taking zinc. Last cold lasted 4 days.

There is scientific proof that if you take the OTC medication your cold will only last 7 days while if you do nothing it will last a full week. Ain’t science wonderful?

Whatever home remedy you take, just add a shot of Maker’s Mark to it and you will soon feel much better.

On the commercials, the person always bounces back like they were never sick at all. Yeah, wish those things really worked like that.

Lynn’s Notes:

I think I’ve said before that my mother was the ultimate “home remedy queen.” If any of us was under the weather, we’d run for cover knowing–if the illness didn’t do us in, her potions, unguents and cures certainly would.What I find distressing now is the ever increasing and bewildering choices we have to make when trying to find any over-the-counter pain relief. It immediately makes me want to go back to the remedies my mom pulled out of her hat!

This is funny because I’m just getting over a summer cold (it’s summer here) and my wife is still suffering from one. I’m a great believer in natural remedies – ie. honey and lime for a sore throat and cough – and a couple of aspirins for the aches and pains, lots of vitamin C from freshly squeezed oranges, a hot toddy (or two) to help me sleep and I’m able to tolerate and be tolerated.

My esposa maravillosa, on the other hand, is a walking drug store. She’s got an array of nostrums and medicines guaranteed to cure her cold – eventually.

No one can look sicker than Elly.

Anyone remember my mother’s favorite – mustard plaster?

OTC cold and flu relief is only treating the symptoms. Not the cause. In fact they may worsen the severity and lengthen the time you are ill from it.

The problem with OTC drugs is that they can kill you. Get yourself an “all in one” cold remedy and add some acetominephin, and you’ve just poisoned your liver.

Probises?

Yes, the drug of your choice won’t cure you. But relieving the miserable symptoms so you can go to work and spread your “joy”, is the name of the game.

Have a Hot Toddy or 2.

Take a dose of all of that and you will feel no pain ever again.

Or “Proboscis, proboscis, proboscis.”

My grandfather used to clear his sinuses by eating fresh horseradish, as hot as he could make it.

It’s too bad Elly didn’t know anyone in the medical profession who could give her some advice on what medicines to take.

Probises or probiscus?

She’s like me now I am sick

I remember one time when I called in sick to work, I was so congested that my voice was an octive lower than usual and my boss thought it was someone else trying to pull a prank on him.