How to treat Upper respiratory infections naturally?

Hello and welcome to Body of Harmony. My name is Oriana Leo and I'm Here again with Dr. Hakimi. Today's subject is upper respiratory infections. What are they and what are the natural remedies available to us to make us feel better? So, Dr. Hakimi, what is an upper respiratory infection?

Upper respiratory infection is a viral or a bacterial or even sometimes fungal infection of the nasal cavity, the throat, the sinuses, and then the lungs as well, which causes certain issues for us. We all have had it throughout our lives, obviously, multiple times we get it from the time we're a kid. You know, when we're three, four, five months old, we start getting upper respiratory infections. And as we age, it changes. At times we get what we call the flu, which has its own symptoms, which is the nasal congestion, the body aches, the fevers, chills. Some people get diarrhea with it as well. Muscle aches, joint pains.

You tend to know when you have the flu because it's so bad, because.

You can't move anymore.

Right.

As opposed to a cold, which is a little bit less severe and you can actually still function, but you will have some other symptoms with it, which is what we're going to talk about today based on the location that it is in the body. Okay. We have. Our body has certain defense mechanism. One of our defense mechanism is our skin. So our skin actually helps us, protects us from the bacteria, the fungus and the virus that we come across with. And it cannot penetrate and go inside our body. Okay. The next defense mechanism that we have is our mucous membrane and our stomach. So what happens is throughout the day, as we talk and we go around and we breathe in the air, we're breathing in a lot of bacteria, a lot of virus, funguses, and other chemicals. And the upper part, the nasal cavity and the mouth cavity sort of humidify the air and also trap some of these bacteria and virus. And what happens is we continually swallow these things and they basically go down inside our stomach. The stomach acid is there to actually kill a lot of these viruses and bacteria. So that's the other interesting. Exactly. That's the other barrier that we have to the external viruses and the bacteria that comes in.

So the same acid that helps us digest our food is the acid that will kill potential pathogens or bad bacteria that get into our body.

Exactly. Okay. And that is one of my issues with taking antacids is because not only we are taking away body's ability to digest food properly, we are also taking away the body's ability to Sort of support itself and protect itself from the external bacteria.

So in theory, taking too many antacids or even taking antacids at all could affect your immunity.

It can, definitely. And there are some studies that show that patients that are in ICU that are put on antacid actually do worse than, as far as infections are concerned, than the people. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about our GI system and heartburn and stuff at a later time.

Okay.

What we want to talk about today is what are we going to do? What are the signs that someone is sick? What are we going to do for it? And how are we going to prevent all these things?

Right, prevention. And then when you feel like something's coming on, how can you handle it?

Exactly. So, as you said, we have this natural tendency, the body has a natural tendency, of fixing itself. We've talked about this with homeopathy. We've talked about this with osteopathy as well. The body wants to get rid of the bacteria and the virus and the fungus that comes into the body. And we have our immune system that starts functioning. We have the mucous membranes that start functioning. And we know one of the first signs that someone is sick is actually when we start getting a little congestion, a little bit of mucus production, the neck starts getting a little painful in front and in the back, the voice starts changing. And all that actually is telling us that the lymphatic system in the upper respiratory tract is actually working properly. Okay. So our body's bringing in good cells so that it can actually fight the bacteria or whatever is happening in this area. We want the body to actually be able to kill those things.

So when we're having some of those very early warning signs, that's actually a signal that our immune system is kicking in. So it's working, but we may be getting sick. Okay.

And that we have been exposed to something. Okay.

Right.

And then as the time goes on, we know that the bacteria or the virus starts finding a place either in the sinus cavities, in the ears, in the throat, in the lungs, in the bronchus or in the lungs. And then we have different names for them. Sinusitis and then ear infections, tonsillitis, and we have bronchitis and we have pneumonia. So the virus or the bacteria sort of find a place and start growing in that area, and that's the area that usually will have pain. Everyone who's had a sinus infection or an ear infection or throat Infection can tell us that there's definitely pain involved in the area as well. And that's around the time that we start feeling the secondary symptoms that we get with an infection, which is we start getting tired, the appetite goes away, we get body aches and sometimes joint aches and fevers and chills. And then we go through this stage where our body is actually trying to. So our immune system has kicked in completely and is trying to get rid of the virus and the fungus and the bacteria. And if we give it enough time, most of our body should be able to fight the infection on its own.

Okay.

So if we don't treat the sinus infection or we don't treat the bronchitis, and most of our bodies are able to get rid of this infection on their own, except if someone is diabetic or they have heart problem or kidney problem or some immune dysfunction or they're pregnant, then it becomes hard for their body to actually get rid of the infection.

Now, can I ask you, Many people feel these symptoms coming on of an upper respiratory infection, and they go straight to their doctor seeking an antibiotic.

We see that every day.

I know from experience that that is not always a good idea, but it happens all the time. Why should people hesitate doing that? I mean, if that's a pattern that they've had their whole lives, why would they stop?

Exactly. The reason is because taking antibiotics actually gets the body weaker a little bit. Because we're trying to kill. We're trying to kill the bacteria that's offending us, but we end up killing a bunch of different bacteria that's normal to our body and natural and lives with live with our body that are beneficial to our body, we kill those as well. So we start getting weaker at the beginning.

So instead of fighting the battle, it's a war. The antibiotic ends up being a war. Okay?

So it's important for us to give it enough time to see if our body, our immunity, can actually do this or not. The second thing is our immune system gets used to taking an antibiotic and doesn't want to put up the fight anymore. The last time I took antibiotics, I was thinking about it the other day was 10 years ago.

Wow.

And since then, I haven't had any antibiotics. And if I get ill, I'll do everything that we're going to talk about today, which will help me to nip it in the butt and get out of this cycle. I'll feel, you know, you feel horrible for a day or two sometimes. But the body's immune Response will kick in and it will do its job. And every time you do that, the body's immune system will actually get a little bit stronger.

So what can we do?

Exactly. What can we do? The first things that we should do is obviously to stay away from getting exposed to bacteria, because we know the reason that we get sick is either the load of the bacteria that we're exposed to is too much like people who work in hospitals, people who are in doctor's offices, people who are around sick people, or, you know, if someone at our house, a brother, sister or family member is getting sick, you know that all of a sudden the bacterial load, the viral load of the house has gone up because someone is breathing the air and there's bacteria and virus in that air. So that's one of the reasons we get sick. The other reason is if our immunity is not functioning properly. And the reason our immunity doesn't function properly is we are either tired people who are overworked, and we know sleep has a lot to do with it. If we don't sleep enough, obviously our body's immune system is not going to work properly. Sleep is the time that our body actually does a lot of healing. And all of us are overworked these days and we don't sleep enough. We drink our coffee and we run around stressed out. And there are studies that have shown that stress actually decreases immune function. So people who are stressed out obviously will have the same thing. People who don't drink enough fluids. That means there's nothing in their body that can clear the body out of off of the bacteria and the virus that's in the body. And people who don't exercise properly, people who don't eat proper food, this creates a situation in the body where stagnation happens and immunity is low. And it's very easy to get sick. So what we're going to do is we're going to change all of those and then I'm going to tell you a bit more about supplements that we can take as well that will help us.

Okay?

So the most important thing is someone is you feel that someone is sick around you or you're getting somewhere where everyone is sick. You need to stay away from breathing the air as much as you can. Okay? You need to wash your hands as much as you can. You need to try not to touch your face. Because a lot of the time we shake hands with people and we carry the germ and then, you know, our natural response is to grab our face and we can transfer that straight to the upper respiratory area.

How do you feel about antibacterial, either hand sanitizer or soap. When you say wash your hands all the time, or more often, is that with regular soap or antibacterial?

Regular soap will do the job. We also know that antibacterials help in the setting of hospitals, but we also have found certain negative information about antibacterial soaps, which are not causing issues with our fertility. So we also want to stay away from them.

So a good hand scrub with regular soap is enough.

A good hand scrub is perfect. Okay. So drinking enough water, warm fluids will definitely help the body.

Why warm fluids versus cold fluids?

Because we know the body needs to spend energy to bring everything that's in our body to the 37 degrees or 98 degrees Fahrenheit body temperature that we have. So whatever we drink in the body eventually has to become that temperature. Once we drink cold fluids, our body has to spend energy warming it up. Exactly. But it's exactly the other way around. Once you have warm fluids, you're actually adding energy to the body. And there are certain homeopathic medications that help with the first signs of flu. One of them is oscillococcinum. It's a mouthful. It's really hard to. But that is one that I use myself all the time, and I use it with all my patients. Oscillococcinum is a homeopathic medication that you use in three doses every six hours. It will help the body to start encouraging the immune system. There are other remedies that we use or other supplements that we use. We know that black elderberry is one that helps a lot.

Okay.

Echinacea has always been there, and it's one that everyone uses.

Sure.

Echinacea is one that we can use sort of at the beginning of illness. There is obviously a lot of people use vitamin C, and we need to use high doses of vitamin C. One of the other sources that we can get vitamin C is just regular lemon or lime. If you cut the lemon and lime in half, and if you feel sick, squeeze it in water and have three, four, five of those a day, you're actually adding a lot of natural vitamin.

C to your body without adding more sugar that you might from orange juice or other fruit juices. Interesting.

Soups are very important, we know, because of the fact that they give us a lot of fluid, they give us a lot of nutrients. They're very important for our body.

It sounds like the key to preventing sickness or even treating sickness. When it comes to upper Respiratory infections is to be balanced, to drink the fluids, so and so forth. But many of us don't make that priority. So what are, what is your advice for those of us that might be a little stressed and a little harried on time?

My advice is it needs to become a lifestyle. When you wake up in the morning. We were talking about this earlier. You were talking about this earlier. When you wake up in the morning, you need to have your two glasses of water right away. You need to hydrate the body because we know the kidneys need the water, the GI system needs the water. We need to be able to do a lot of the reactions that happen in the body that actually happen in water and using water. And if we don't have water inside our body, we know that it's going to be harder for our body to do things. So we need to overload our body with fluids. We need to exercise on a regular basis. The function of exercise with flu or cold or any illness. We have to understand that overdoing an exercise once we're sick is actually going to get us worse. We don't want to make the body tired. You want to exercise as much as it will raise your blood pressure a little bit, it will raise your temperature a little bit, and it will make you sweat and keep that for 20 minutes. We don't want to over exercise because then we're gonna get tired and then the bacteria and virus can overgrow.

Okay?

So we have to do what the body naturally will do. And we know that our body naturally, when we get sick, will have fevers, we'll have sweats, and with exercise, we can do exactly the same thing.

Now, how do you know when you really do need some antibiotics? How do you know when you've been doing everything right? You think you've been taking your echinacea, once you start feeling sick, you're taking your supplements. When is the time to think, okay, now I need to go and get some more help.

We have taken all the homeopathic stuff and all the natural stuff for a while, and we see that not only we're not getting better, we're getting worse. The signs that we need an antibiotic are usually having a green nasal discharge, brown nasal discharge that tells us or a nasal discharge that has blood in it, which tells us there's a sinus infection or coughing up a green phlegm or brown phlegm. Those are usually what tells us that there is a bacterial illness going on. And if we're not getting better, obviously, and Also, if there's any other illness that prevents us from getting better. And some of us, our doctors have told us already, people who have heart issues have heart valve issues. Our doctors have told us already, you need to have an antibiotic as soon as you get sick. So we're not saying don't take an antibiotic. We're saying for a healthy person who has no other issues and all of a sudden gets sick, we can extend this period of time by adding some healthy exercises to see if we can prevent getting the antibiotics so that our immune system can actually kick in and.

Get stronger, get stronger.

Otherwise, we definitely have to take our antibiotics because we just.

And how long is long enough? Is it two weeks? Is it three weeks of not getting better and getting worse? Many people, I think, aren't patient enough and they don't know how long it is that they're supposed to be waiting.

I think usually it's one week. Because an illness will come to our body within the first three, four days. We'll feel it. Fourth day should be the worst day. And then after the fourth day, we should stop, start feeling better. So by day five, six, seven, we should feel better. If our immunity can kick something out, it will be able to do it that quickly. If after one week or five, six days, you're not getting better, you're actually getting worse, that's when we need to see our doctors.

Okay, so in conclusion, we need to make sure that we're sleeping, we're well hydrated, and we have an exercise routine. And all this is just to maintain immunity and stay healthy. Now that we know what we can do, we are well educated. Thank you for joining us. I'm orianna Leo with Dr. Hakimi. And this is another video for Body of Harmony helping you stay healthy.

Thank you.