Trying to get BOT, I just thought of a few more home remedies.

Sweet oil for an ear ache
Aloe from an aloe plant for burns and dry skin

Not sure what you could do when the sweet oil runs out but aloe vera plants are easy to grow inside. Keep your suggestions coming.

The home remedies just keep coming. Compugeek mentioned using honey as a cough suppresant, Izzy mentioned he uses it straight for a sore throat and cough and that it's natural bacteria may fight off other infections. It also has another use. If you suffer from seasonal allergies, take a tablespoon of local honey every day. Because the honey is made from the local flowers that may be causing your distress it should build your tolerance/immunity to the pollen of the flowers in question and help ease or eliminate the allergies. Please keep the suggestions coming.

An old neighbor of mine told me his remedy to relieve a wasp/bee sting. bum a cigarette from some one, tear open, make poultice out of the moistened tobacco. Years later, hunting for mushrooms, apparently ground hornets (yellowjackets) are active in the early spring and do not like being disturbed by a walking stick punching through their roof. long story short while i looked pretty silly but the pain from the half a dozen stings subsided within 2-3 minutes. rather than the normal 10-15 minutes.

In the south..dog fennel..crush and apply as insecticide. works on mosquitoes and some flies. does not work on bees, yellow jackets, etc. may not be 100% effective on some mosquitoes (tiger mosquitoes).

Herbal Cures with Aloe

Aloe is generally used in the treatment of liver disorders including Jaundice (biliousness), chronic constipation, piles, gas formation in the stomach, loss of appetite and diseases such as painful menstruation, irregularity in menstruation and leucorrhoea (foul smelling discharge from the genital tract) in women. Since it cures liver and digestive disorders, it is specially useful for children.

Externally, it is used in the treatment of bums and sprains.

For liver disorders including chronic constipation, jaundice , piles, loss of appetite, gas in the abdomen and leucorrhoea, the juice or pulp of this plant is given to the patient. Since it is bitter to the taste, a pinch of salt should be added to it. While giving it to children, an equal quantity of honey or a small quantity of sugar should be added.

The herbal market is small in comparison to the pharmaceutical market that has quite a lot of power and money for lobbying.

Viruses aren't controlled by anything other than vaccines, as far as I've ever heard.

Good nutrition is for overall health, herbals have always seemed to be used for specific symptoms.

Many pharmaceuticals have so many side effects that the side effects are worse than the original conditions.

Sue

The Medicinal Herb FAQ

-Blast

Thanks for the link Blast. But that may qualify as cheating. Shame on you.

But then it's better than just plagiarizing.

You mean survival isn't about cheating? Cheating death to live yet another day?



A true mark of genius . . . don't waste time and energy by plagiarizing, just post the link to the best source available!

When H1N1 was frequently on my mind last fall, my reading turned up elderberries as a tool against influenza, at least seasonal influenza, but I don't see why it wouldn't have some effect with H1N1. There seems to be valid scientific and clinical evidence for it. It apparently disrupts the ability of the influenza virus to infect new cells in the host's body, which buys time for your own immune system to eventually produce the antibodies that will take care of the buggers for good. Note that we're talking about its effect on influenza specifically, not necessarily the scores of other bugs that can cause flu-like disease, although it does also apparently have a general immune boosting effect as well.

You can buy commercially prepared elderberry extracts like Sambucol, Sambucus, etc., or prepare your own tincture using just elderberries and vodka. There are various variations on the recipe on the web, including alcohol-free ones, like for children. Apparently elderberries (only use the Sambucus nigra variety) are common in parts of the country, but certainly not around here. I bought the Sambucol but never did try elderberry this flu season so far so I can't comment on how it has worked for me.

However, on a different note, I did try megadosing on Vitamin C on two different occasions in the past few months when I first started feeling like I was coming down with something, like having that tickle in the back of the throat or feeling a bit feverish, and in both cases, I was totally fine by the next morning and it never developed into anything more. Was it just one of those "24 hour" bugs that would've gone away on its own without Vitamin C? Who knows, but I can't complain about how things turned out in both cases.

I'm not big on supplements, but Vitamin C/ascorbic acid is something I'm reading up and experimenting more with after reading about using it against influenza.

My original thinking for searching out these things was that I just wanted to avoid getting a really bad case of the flu. If I get it, I get it, but I'll put up with being sick. I just don't want to end up in the ICU on a ventilator, or worse. That is the big unknown with H1N1--would I be one of the small number that got really, really ill from it.