Treating the Flu at Home:
This blog post is designed to help you prevent and treat the flu at home. It's a simple post because it should be simple. The best thing you can do to prevent the flu is to be as healthy as you can be. If treatment of the flu becomes in any way complex or confusing, you should seek the care of a health care provider, like your naturopathic doctor! Also, if you suffer from any significant medical conditions, please consult a health care provider before implementing any of the suggestions below. Do I Have the Flu? The flu (influenza) is a virus, whereas the common cold can be bacterial or viral. The symptoms of the flu differ from the cold in that you can have a higher fever, severe headache, extreme fatigue, stronger muscle aches and pains, and more chance of serious complications. Here's a great link if you want more details on this topic. Food The first thing you can do to prevent, and treat, the flu is to eat garlic, onions, and ginger. They help improve symptoms and have potent antimicrobial action (which means they fight viruses and bacteria extremely well). Even better, they do so without creating resistance (you might have heard about certain bacteria developing a resistance to antibiotics). Here are some ideas for how to prepare them: a) Garlic - The most important thing to remember is that it is ideal to eat garlic raw and freshly cut, otherwise it loses a lot of its medicinal action. If you're hard core, you can just gnaw on a bulb of garlic. If you want to make things a bit easier on yourself, try making raw garlic toast. I toast (gluten-free) bread, put some olive oil or margarine on it, and then top it with peeled and thinly sliced garlic. You can put the garlic through a garlic press if you'd like. b) Onion - Again, raw and freshly cut is ideal. It's not too hard to add chopped onions to many of the dishes you eat. c) Ginger - the easiest way to eat the ginger is to make tea. Simply peel fresh ginger, slice it into rounds, and pour boiling water over it. You can add honey to this tea. Homeopathy a) Prevention - some naturopathic doctors and homeopaths offer homeopathic prevention options. Please note that this treatment is not meant to replace a vaccine. I offer a homeopathic dilution of the seasonal Influenza vaccines recommended by the World Health Organization for use during 2013-2014 in the northern hemisphere, containing:
b) Immuno-Stimulants - there are homeopathic products designed to stimulate your immune system during the flu season. These products are best prescribed by your health care provider, especially because there are many health conditions that prohibit immunostimulation. C) Symptom Relief - Homeopathic products are often a great treatment for the flu! It's starting to become easier to find good homeopathic products at local grocery stores and pharmacies, along with the health food stores that have always carried them. Naturopathic doctors and homeopaths can prescribe the ideal remedies for you, drawing from their wealth of training and clinical experience. Botanical Medicine Botanical medicine is a fantastic way to treat and prevent the flu. There have been a few plants that have become very popular over the last few years, including echinacea, elderberry (sambucus), and oregano oil. There are plants that are referred to as adaptogens, which help the body deal with stress without becoming depleted, which can be very helpful for flu prevention. There are also many plants that stimulate the immune system, making it more able to fight off the flu. Last but not least, plants have antimicrobial action and help relieve symptoms. I do not recommend self-prescribing botanical medicine, as a rule. There are risks involved, including contraindications with prescription drugs or health conditions. I carry an herbal dispensary of over 50 tinctures (liquid extracts made from herbs), and I recommend patients come see me so that I make them their own specialized botanical tincture that best addresses their health status, symptoms, and concerns. Though my treatments can have antimicrobial action, I will, and do, refer patients to a medical doctor if they will be better served by conventional medicine, such as antibiotics. Lifestyle The three most important lifestyle changes you can make to prevent the flu are: a) Sugar - eat less of it! It suppresses your immune system and can help you to over-extend yourself with artificial surges in energy. b) Sleep - get lots of it. A well-rested body, and immune system, is better able to defend itself. c) Wash your hands and don't touch your face - This is, singlehandedly, the most most important thing you can do to prevent the flu. Touching your eyes, mouth, and nose after you've touched a contaminated surface is often how the virus gains access to your body. Or course, it is also prudent to avoid having anyone sneeze into your eye. Hydrotherapy There are a couple of great things you can do to help your immune system just using water! a) Contrast Showers - At the end of your shower, alternate between a few short periods of cold water, and longer periods or warm water, always ending in cold. The temperatures do not need to be extreme, and please be cautious if you suffer from any sort of health problems (cardiovascular disease, in particular). One of the main ways the contrast shower bolsters your immune system is by causing your body to pump blood to and from the surface. This helps your body clear metabolic waste, delivers fresh nutrients to your cells, and stimulates the lymphatic system (a vital part of your immune system). It often feel terrible while you're doing it, and wonderful once you're done. b) Neti Pot - the neti pot is a great tool in flu prevention, particularly during the winter in a cold climate. It can soothe and moisturize your mucus membranes, making them more able to withstand the flu. It can also help clear allergens out of the nasal passages, which can reduce inflammation. Conventional Medicine A brief word about fever-reducers (Tylenol, ibuprofen, etc.), specifically that you should approach their use with caution. Here's a great article about 'fever phobia.' Some of the most important points are:
When to Seek Help The following (in green) is an excerpt from the Ontario Ministry of Health website. It references children, but it applies to everyone! If you're in doubt about whether or not you are ok, just err on the side of caution and call your health care provider! Call 911 right away or take your child to the nearest hospital emergency department if your child has new onset or worsening of the following symptoms:
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I put together this blog post to educate my readers about the influenza vaccine, specifically the flu shot. It is essentially a compilation of relevant facts. I will follow-up with a blog about naturopathic flu prevention and treatment options next week. The 'flu shot' you're being offered by doctors and pharmacists is the 'inactivated' version (the live version is 'FluMist'). The Evidence: The Cochrane Library is an extremely highly-regarded database company that regularly reviews the current scientific studies on a particular subject and releases what is referred to as a 'plain language summary' (along with a detailed report) so that anyone can understand the results of their work. They do this so that we can all benefit from, and practice, evidence-based medicine. In 2010 they released a report on 'Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults.' What follows (in green) is what they refer to as their 'plain language summary'. Please remember, this pertains to healthy adults aged 16 to 65 years of age: "Over 200 viruses cause influenza and influenza-like illness which produce the same symptoms (fever, headache, aches and pains, cough and runny noses). Without laboratory tests, doctors cannot tell the two illnesses apart. Both last for days and rarely lead to death or serious illness. At best, vaccines might be effective against only influenza A and B, which represent about 10% of all circulating viruses. Each year, the World Health Organization recommends which viral strains should be included in vaccinations for the forthcoming season. Authors of this review assessed all trials that compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. The combined results of these trials showed that under ideal conditions (vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalised or working days lost but caused one case of Guillian-Barré syndrome (a major neurological condition leading to paralysis) for every one million vaccinations. Fifteen of the 36 trials were funded by vaccine companies and four had no funding declaration. Our results may be an optimistic estimate because company-sponsored influenza vaccines trials tend to produce results favorable to their products and some of the evidence comes from trials carried out in ideal viral circulation and matching conditions and because the harms evidence base is limited." [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001269.pub4/abstract] I completely understand this review runs counter to what you're being told by the government. For example, this infographic says that 60 to 80% of healthy adults and children can 'prevent the flu with the flu shot' : [http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/publichealth/flu/docs/hcw_11x8.5_infographic.pdf]. One reason for this discrepancy is because the efficacy of the vaccine is extremely dependent on how well-matched the vaccine is to the strain that actually circulates that year. For example, the CDC released this report in 2008 which stated (in green): "... vaccine effectiveness (VE) against culture-confirmed influenza ranged from 71% to 79% when the vaccine and circulating strains were suboptimally matched to 74% to 79% when the matches were well matched... In contrast, a 2-year study of....influenza vaccine among healthy adults aged 18--64 years found no measurable VE during a year when a poorly matched strain circulated" [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5715a1.htm] The flu shot is less effective in the elderly, and those with compromised immune function. How Well Does it Work in Children? This 2008 study released by a Rochester, New York, hospital was unable to demonstrate vaccine effectiveness (VE) in children in New York state, Ohio, and Tennessee. They compared kids who had been treated for influenza to kids who were patients of doctors participating in the study. An excerpt (in green): "However, significant influenza VE could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting after adjusting for county, sex, insurance, chronic conditions recommended for influenza vaccination, and timing of influenza vaccination (VE estimates ranged from 7%-52% across settings and seasons for fully vaccinated 6- to 59-month-olds)" [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18838647] This is just one study! However, it did indicate the current state of affairs when I reviewed the research. The CDC has a fabulous webpage giving details about how effective vaccines are here. In regards to children, they say: "Children In a four-year randomized, placebo-controlled study of inactivated and live influenza vaccines among children aged 1–15 years, vaccine efficacy was estimated at 77% against influenza A (H3N2) and 91% against influenza A (H1N1) virus infection (Neuzil et al., 2001). A two-year study of children aged 6–24 months found that the vaccine was 66% effective in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza in one year of the study (Hoberman et al., 2003)." Notice, these results pertain only to particular strains of Influenza A. The first study (Neuzil) talked about kids in 1990, and the second study (Hoberman) actually found that although the vaccines were effective in terms of reducing infection rates, also,: ".... in neither cohort were there any statistically significant differences between the vaccine group and the placebo group during ensuing respiratory seasons regarding utilization of selected health care resources. During the second year of the study the rate of hospitalization was actually higher in the vaccine group than in the placebo group." [http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=197348] Last but not least, FluMist is fast becoming the go-to choice for children older than 24 months of age. Ingredients: The flu shot in Canada can contain thimerosal (mercury), formaldehyde, and egg. [http://www.gsk.ca/english/docs-pdf/product-monographs/Fluviral.pdf] [http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/ccdr-rmtc/07vol33/acs-06/index-eng.php] Side Effects: This is a tricky subject. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that vaccines can cause some pretty serious side effects ('anecdotal evidence' means that a lot of people like you and me report it, but it has never been thoroughly scientifically studied or proven). I would direct my readers to check out The Vaccination Risk Awareness Network for more information at http://vran.org/about-vaccines/specific-vaccines/influenza-vaccine-flu-shot/ I often hear patients tell me they got sick after they got the flu shot. You can't get the flu from the flu shot, but it can have an effect on your immune system function. When to Seek Help: The following (in green) is an excerpt from the Ontario Ministry of Health website. Call 911 right away or take your child to the nearest hospital emergency department if your child has new onset or worsening of the following symptoms:
If You Get the Flu Shot:
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AuthorDr. Dielle Raymond, ND Archives
March 2020
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