Recovering from a Cold or Flu Faster – What Not to Do

Hi everyone, it's Dr. Donnie and I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation about helping you guys fight off cold viruses and flu viruses more effectively.

So last week we started this conversation. I'll post a link. For those of you who maybe didn't see that video and article, you can find it on my Facebook page. So, hi there, Myrna. I like that little emoji you found. That's cute.

So what I was thinking is, of course after I finished the Facebook Live last week, I had all these ideas and thoughts of like, oh, I forgot to say this, and I forgot to tell you guys this. So I wanted to come back and talk some more about colds. Plus, I mean, every single day I keep hearing about more and more people who keep getting sick. I even got a call from my dad today asking me what to do. So let's get you guys well. So first I was thinking let's talk in terms of what not to do because there's a lot of things that people hear of to do. Chris. Now I feel like I'm gonna sneeze here. Maybe I'm gonna sneeze. People hear to do and or just do because, you know, they heard a product advertised, but it's not really the thing that's gonna help them most. So let's talk about what not to do and then we're going to talk about what to do. Alright, So I was thinking let's start with fever. So I would say as tempting as it is to want to get rid of a fever, I know they're uncomfortable, but I would say don't try to decrease your fever unless it's really high. Okay. Let's say if it's over 102, especially in a child. But if it's a high fever, we're going to want to take steps to drop it and figure out why it's so high. But let's say your fever is like 99 or 100, then we don't want to try to decrease the fever because the fever is your immune system's way to help you fight off the virus. Right? So if the whole thing is we want to help your body recover faster, then we don't want to do anything that's going to inhibit your progress. So if a fever is your immune system helping you fight up a virus, then you're going to want to keep that fever and help it out, actually. So, you know, it's very common that people will jump straight to taking over the counter cold and flu products. And if you look on the Label of a lot of those products, it will have acetaminophen in there or a fever reducer. So these medications have ingredients that decrease your fever. I mean, now they say, okay, again, it feels good, right? You take it. Maybe you sleep better, maybe you get through the day better because you don't feel so feverish. But I would say better for you to call in sick, get out of work, because you don't want to get everybody else sick anyway. And the best way for you to recover faster is, is to be at home in bed taking care of yourself. So cancel your plans, stay home, get in bed, and let your body have a fever of about 99 to 100 degrees. Now, if it goes above 100, instead of jumping to taking a medication that lowers it, first, try drinking some water, because just staying hydrated will help your body decrease the fever. Figure out if you need to take off some clothing. Maybe you're just dressed too warmly and you need to just drop your temperature. That way, if the temperature is definitely going up high, then it could mean you have a bacterial infection, and so you need to look into it further. I wouldn't just take a fever reducer and ignore it. You know, we need to pay attention to high fevers, too. So that's my. That's a different take on how to handle a fever and how to use a fever to your benefit. I would say that if you guys try it this next time, and I want to hear, hi, Melissa. Hi, Denise. Next time you guys start to get sick and you kind of go with this and encourage your temperature and encourage a fever, help your body out with that. Don't reduce the temperature. Don't reduce your fever. I have a feeling you're going to get better faster because you're actually helping your body to fight off that virus and recover faster. So, in fact, one of the first things I would do when you think you're getting sick is to even jump in a hot shower, a hot bath, and then get in bed and really feel warm. If you don't have a fever, you might actually want to get yourself nice and hot and see if you can get your temperature up to 99. So those would be one of the tricks you can do to help yourself recover faster. Actually, let's talk through. How would you. You know, I think one of the best things is to identify, how do you know when you're catching a cold or a flu? Because sometimes I find, like, for myself, I kind of ignore those initial symptoms. Right? It's like you. You're like oh, my throat's a little sore, but hopefully that's not what it is. And next thing, it's like the next day and the next day, and you're just. Then you're getting sicker and sicker. So what I want to encourage you to do is don't ignore those initial symptoms. Right? Do not ignore those symptoms. Start acting immediately, even if it doesn't turn out to be a cold. Hey, that's a good thing. So. So might as well pay attention faster. So if you guys notice a sore throat or sneezing more than usual, congestion, headache, even feeling achy or extra tired than usual, let's see if you guys can think of any other.

Ones. Oh, I see a comment here from Myrna. I made my own Vicks. Okay. I love it. Used Exclear for stuffy nose. Great idea. But I love the old Vicks. Even though it contains the bad stuff. Yeah, exactly. The bad stuff. That's the stuff that drops your fever. So good for you. Myrna, you did a different version that helped to clear the congestion using Exclear. Now, Xclear is a nasal spray that's made with xylitol. And xylitol can be really good as an antimicrobial, and so it can, you know, can help for sure, but it doesn't reduce your fever. So you can keep the fever while still helping with the congestion. And she said she had a fever 102 for a day and coughed for only two days. See, that's what I'm talking about. Good for you, Myrna. That's exactly. Thank you. That's exactly it. You kind of got through the fever and it helped you recover faster. So that's what we want. Okay, let's see. What was I talking about? So the trick, the things not to do so far is try to not reduce the fever. Unless, of course, it's way too high. Then you're going to get more attention for it and find out why. And then we want to not ignore the symptoms. You got to jump on it and start helping your body out quickly. So you want to make sure that you.

Pay attention and actually take a break, get a hot bath or shower, stay hydrated, get in bed, take some extra nap, extra sleep. The other thing that sometimes people do when they start to feel like they have a sore throat, and this is another thing of not to do, but this is what I hear often is people will feel like they want to have something soothing their sore throat, and so they end up, like, say, eating ice cream or.

Maybe having Hot chocolate. I could imagine it could be either something cold or something hot you feel like you want to have because you feel like your throat is sore. The thing is that ice cream or milkshakes or anything of that sort contains dairy and sugar and both dairy. So dairy meaning anything made from cow milk and sugar are going to only help the virus. We don't want to help the virus, we want to help you.

So the problem with dairy products or cow milk products is that it increases the phlegm. So here you are, you're trying to decrease phlegm, but if you have cow milk products, you're actually increasing all that phlegm. So now you're going to have more to blow your nose and more to cough. And the sugar decreases your immune function. So you want your immune system to be able to fight up a virus. But sugar, really? Lots of studies have shown that when you even a spread spoonful of sugar will drop your immune system for hours. That's the last thing you want when you're trying to fight off a virus. So as tempting as it can be, if you have a sore throat, don't turn to something that has milk that's going to raise the phlegm or sugar that's going to drop your immune system. Instead, you want to choose something that's actually going to soothe your sore throat and help your body out. So I would choose salt in like a saltwater gargle. Because salt, as simple as it sounds, salt is antimicrobial. So it can kill bacteria and viruses. And if you, you know, no matter where you are, you can find some salt. Even if it's just regular salt, it doesn't have to be sea salt. Sprinkle the salt in some water, gargle a couple times. Salt does three things. Salt is antimicrobial, so it can kill bacteria and viruses. And it also is anti inflammatory, so it' soothes when it's all swollen and irritated. It's very soothing and anti inflammatory or astringent. And the third thing is it also thins out the phlegm. So it makes it so any phlegm that's there is going to be able to be coughed up easier and get out of your body easier. So salt is really good stuff when it comes to helping you fight off a cold or flu naturally. Okay, so that reminds me about sinus rinses, because a lot of people will do like say a neti pot or even at the regular pharmacy they have like some sinus rinsing, various kinds of containers and solutions that you can get. And there are some good ways to do sinus rinsing, but there's also some ways to not do them right. So let's talk about that. So what I find is that a lot of people, when they do a sinus rinse, they're using too much liquid. Like if you use a whole neti pod or a whole bottle of water, like a cup of water, it's just too much. I think. I find that people end up when they're doing a sinus rinse with that much water, they end up still congested because that does, it's not. Doesn't have enough a chance to get back out. So what I recommend when you do a sinus rinse is to use a small amount of water, like maybe even no more than a tablespoon rinsing through each side of your each nostril, each side of your sinuses. So use less water.

Or less liquid, I should say. Now the solution that you make, you can get a pre bought, pre made solution to make with your water.

Or you can make your own. You're going to want to use a distilled water. You know, you want to make sure you're not putting water through your sinuses that might be unclean water, right? So that's another not to do with your sinus rinse. Make sure you're using clean water. You can use any temperature, but most people prefer more of a warm temperature water. Then you add either the solution or some salt to it so that you get it to the right solution. I would say you want it to be like you're swimming in the ocean. You know, you don't want it to be too salty where it feels like it burns, right. If there's too much salt, it feels almost like it burns a little bit. If there's not enough salt, it might be too watery and that's not going to be helpful either. Right. We just talked about all the benefits of salt. So you want to have enough saltiness in the solution that it kind of would be like as if you were swimming in the ocean. Or you know that it tastes salty but it's not burning. But you only want to have a small amount of liquid and then you rinse through each sinus and kind of, you know, you can do it where you tip your head over the sink, rinse through one side, tip your head to the other side, but do a quick version and you could do it a couple times a day. But really be mindful to not use too much liquid because Again, a lot of times I find that when there's too much liquid stuck in there, then you still feel congested and you still have a cough. Okay, so let's talk about a cough. See, most times a cough is caused from liquid dripping down your throat and it tickles the nerves in there. Notice this liquid and it feels like a tickle. And that's what makes your body want to cough because it thinks that there's liquid stuck in there, it's trying to help you cough it out. So one of the best ways to decrease a cough is to have less liquid coming through, through your sinuses. And that's one of the reasons why a lot of the over the counter cough suppressants usually also contain a substance that's going to thin the phlegm or like an antihistamine to decrease the phlegm altogether. Because if you decrease the phlegm and you thin it, then it's going to be much less likely to trigger a cough. But you can do that even without using an over the counter medication you could use. There's natural products, plant based substances that are antihistamine and that can thin the phlegm. We talked about salt already, right? It's already going to thin the phlegm and be anti inflammatory. But you can also use herbs like quercetin for example, is antihistamine. Vitamin C is also antihistamine on its own. So these are things that, and they don't make you drowsy. A lot of over the counter antihistamines make you tired, right. And you don't really want to be tired during the day. But you can take vitamin C as an antihistamine and it will help decrease all this liquid production. You can also use quercetin and you can use something called hesperidin, which is also from plants and is an antihistamine. So you're decreasing the amount of fluid that's being produced and that automatically is going to decrease the cough because there's less of a tickle. Of course you decrease when you decrease the fluid, you're also inhibiting bacteria because the bacteria just all they're looking for is a nice moist place to hang out. So if there's less liquid around, you're going to have much less likelihood of bacterial infections as well.

Okay, let's see. So in terms of a cough, I would say not to use a cough, you know, over the counter cough syrup, because one of the other things that comes a lot of times with the cough syrups and the other Cold and flu over the counter medications is sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Speaking of the bad stuff, right, Myrna, not only does it have medications in there with side effects that reduce your fever, but it also has sugar or alcohol. And both sugar and alcohol make it harder for your body to fight off the infection. So these substances, these products that you're taking, are very likely delaying and making the infection last longer. So you're taking them thinking, oh, this is going to help me get through the day and help me get better. But quite likely they're actually making it last longer because they contain sugar and alcohol, both of which will inhibit your immune system and inhibit your ability to recover. So instead, when you get a cough, we want to first of all help decrease the amount of fluid using natural antihistamines. And then you can do things like drinking herbal tea or even herbal tea with honey, for example, that is very soothing to your throat and actually helps heal the cough. A lot of herbs. So you might even be able to find at the store what I call an herbal cough syrup, that instead of being made with medications and sugar is made with herbs. And the herbs actually help heal the cough. So they actually help your body heal. Get anti inflammatory, they help move the phlegm, they actually help heal the cough instead of just suppressing a cough. What we want to do is heal a cough. So what not to do is you don't want to just suppress a cough. What we want to do is we want to help heal a cough. And there's ways to do it using herbs and tea and ways to decrease the fluid production. Okay, let's see. So I covered a bunch. I'm hoping that's helpful. How are you guys doing? Anybody have any questions? Like, have you heard something that you're like, oh, I heard I should do this, But I always wondered if it really was a good thing to do. Maybe you guys can share with me if there's anything that you're like, if you've been wondering about or if you have questions about or anything that you think, you know, you thought was, you know, you're wondering if it's a good thing for you to do or not. And you can write in later and I can, I can reply to you guys later if you think of something. I wanted to just share one more thing. That's one of my favorites. And this is great for kids as well. Some places they call it warming socks or. But I call it magic socks. I've just always called it magic socks because it's a Lot more fun for kids when we call it magic socks. So what it is, it's. It's using cold socks. And when you put the cold socks on your feet, it actually stimulates the immune system and helps get the congestion to drain, and it helps you recover faster. So let me tell you how to do the magic socks. And again, you can do this for children as well. And they, they actually, you know, seem to do really well with it. And I've had kids where as soon as the cold started, they did magic socks. By the next day, the cold was gone. So it works really well. So what you do is you take a pair of your just regular cotton socks and you run them under the faucet, get them nice and wet, and then put them in the freezer. You want to put them in the freezer long enough for them to get nice and cold. I usually find it's at least a minute until they're cold, but you still have to get your foot in there, so you don't want them so frozen hard that you can't get your foot in there. Then you're going to.

Also grab a pair of socks that are not cold and wet, you know, just regular. And usually it helps if they're kind of large because they're going to have to go over the top of the cold socks. And then you're going to lay down, like on the couch, get all bundled up so you're nice and bundled and warm in your blankets. Then you put the cold socks on, then you put the other dry socks over the top, and then you just lay there for 15 minutes or so. I mean, you could listen to music, you could meditate, you could do a body scan, you could, you could watch a show, whatever you want to do. But meanwhile, your body is working hard to warm up your feet. And to do that, it has to use your circulation, so it increases blood flow.

Moves to warm up your feed, and in the process, it stimulates your immune system and helps your body fight off the virus. So that's the, what I call magic socks. And you could do magic socks. I mean, you could even do it like every day for a few days. But it seems to especially help if you can do it very early at the onset of the cold or flu. One other trick I wanted to share with you guys is something I call the Eustachian tube massage, which is. See, because for a lot of people, when they catch a cold and their sinuses are all full of fluid or they have a sinus infection, then what happens is that liquid drains into the ears and this happens for kids a lot too, right? So then the ears are all full and it feels really like a lot of pressure. It feels like you're underwater and it can feel painful too. But the thing is, the way our anatomy works is we have a tube that runs from behind the ears down along our jawline to our throat. It's the way the water goes out and the liquid goes out. But the thing is that eustachian tube along the jawline, it gets all swollen when you have a cold. And so it would be like if, you know, if it was a tube and it got swollen now the liquid can't fit through there anymore. So by using some of these anti inflammatory ideas, antihistamines, you can also put heat that sometimes also helps and be anti inflammatory along the jaw along the eustachian tube. But the massage, the way it works is very gently rub from behind the ear along the jawline and you can sometimes kind of feel it because it'll be a little tender. You know, a couple just very gentle rubs. Don't rub hard, nothing painful. But when you gently rub like that, sometimes you can actually feel the liquid from your ears drain into your throat. Now you might then feel a sore throat or a little bit of a cough from the trickle going down your throat. But you'll know why. You'll be like, oh, okay, that's good. It drained the liquid from my ears down to my throat. So I can either swallow it or cough it up. And this is going to be really helpful to get your ears feeling better because again, bacteria love fluid. So if the fluid is just sitting there, it's much more likely the bacteria are going to cause a bacterial infection in the ears. You get the liquid out, all of a sudden the bacteria are not so happy. They're not going to hang out there. Okay, so now you guys got some tricks. You know magic socks, you know the eustachian tube massage, you know what to do when you first get sick, you know what not to do. And I'm really looking forward to hearing how you do with all of those tips. Again, write in to me if you have any other questions. And I'm also going to post for you guys a cold and flu guide. It's a new version of cold and flu guide that I made for you that talks you through some of these tips and also shows you some of my favorite products. So I'll put a link where you can, you can enter your information so I can email you the cold and flu guide. And I look forward to hearing you, hearing from you. I really hope you guys stay well. And my hope is that if you do catch a virus, then you know what to do to get better fast. And, yeah, I look forward to hearing your feedback. All right, thank you. Have a good evening.