there’s been a lot of talk about the swine flu and how to prepare it lately online. a lot of scary talk, from mandatory vaccines (which incidentally, the manufacturers have just had a law passed on their behalf which holds them unresponsible for any side affects that might occur from said vaccination) to quarantines and more.
many people are wondering what to do to prepare for the flu, to help prevent it, how to lessen the severity and duration and how to avoid the secondary bacterial infections that can occur from complications of it. i hope to be able to touch on all these things and give you a starting point for feeling confident in preventing and/or treating any cases of the flu that might come into your home. today i’ll cover what to do to prevent the flu from entering your home.
first of all, to vaccinate or not? honestly, that is a personal decision that you alone have to decide. i can tell you that research has proven that the flu vaccination (for any flu, not just the swine flu) will NOT prevent the flu. it will only lessen the duration of the flu by 1-2 days and lessen the severity of it. also, the vaccination needs to be taken at least 10 days before the flu is contracted to be effective. herbalist michael tierra recommends taking homeopathic thuja occidentalis 30x starting 2 days after vaccinating for 3 days, 3 times a day, with a dosage of 10-20 drops for liquid or 4-5 for pellets. he recommends taking this for prevention and to treat reactions, including guillain-barre syndrome (which is one of the side effects of the swine flu vaccine).
whether or not you decide to vaccinate, there are precautions you can take to avoid the flu. one of the most obvious is hygiene. frequent hand washing is a must. watching what you touch in public, possibly bringing along your own alcohol wipes to wipe off shopping carts and your hands is a great idea. most public places offer handy wipes and while i generally wouldn’t use them, for this time of year, it’s a smart choice.
~as an aside, if you do get the flu and your doctor recommends tamiflu, please be aware it is only helpful if taken in the first 1-2 days of contracting the flu and will not ‘cure’ you of the flu but only lessen the duration and severity….see a pattern here?!~
getting large dosages of vitamin d3 to keep our vit d levels up has been proven effective for preventing the flu. the problem with us folks in the northern hemisphere is that no matter how much time we spend outdoors this time of year, we are not going to get the necessary amounts of vitamin d into our system because the angle of the sun/earth will not allow it which causes many people to become vitamin d deficient in the winter months. paul bergner recommends going to a tanning booth 3 times a week for 20 minutes, using a tanning bed with uvb rays. (if you go this route, make sure you specify you want a uvb bed as most beds are calibrated for uva). this is too short of a time to get sunburn or cancer is the most natural way to get vitamin d3 this time of year (funny, i never thought i’d recommend a tanning bed as ‘natural’ but here ya go!). another way to get vitamin d3 is to take 4-5000 iu a day. there has also been some suggestion of eating sun-dried mushrooms which contain vitamin d2, another useful form of vitamin d that could also be effective. a third way of getting enough vitamin d would be to visit south florida or mexico during the winter and hang outside between 11-1, exposing as much as your body as possible (your face does not absorb enough vitamin d on its own).
diet plays a large role in remaining healthy as well. avoiding the usual recommendations of processed and refined foods, eating lots of dark, leafy greens, drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day all have their merit. cooking bone broths and using them for daily cooking in place of water (for rice, beans, soups, etc) are another great way to get lots of valuable nutrients. adding 4-6 ‘sticks’ of astragalus roots to a soup/broth once a week will give your entire family a huge immune supporting and building herbal treatment without them even knowing it. garlic is another great herb to try to consume daily. rosemary gladstar has a great recipe for pickled garlic. unfortunately, it takes 12 weeks to completely process but it’s great to have on hand any time of the year! here’s my version of it:
peel as many cloves of garlic as you’d like. i generally fill 1 quart jar full of them. try not to nick the cloves as they will become discolored. fill the jar full of either tamari or apple cider vinegar. i usually make 1 jar of each because they both are tasty! label and set aside for 6 weeks. after 6 weeks, strain off half of the tamari or vinegar and top the jar back off with raw honey. shake well to mix and then set aside for 6 more weeks. now it’s ready to consume! eat a couple a day to keep the germs away! these make tasty gifts as well. if you start a batch today, they will be ready on december 17! just in time to give away to family and friends for the holidays and possibly even enough time to save yourself from the flu season (jan – mar is typically the hardest hit time).
exercising daily is important as it keeps the blood from getting stagnant. exercising outdoors is preferable so that your lungs can breathe in fresh air. something as simple as stretching or yoga every day is the perfect way to begin your day, especially if done outside. it’s an invigorating and wonderful way to start the day!
other important factors are adequate sleep, lowering stress levels and having a happy outlook on life.
one final factor is using herbs to help prevent the flu from arriving on your doorstep. i’ve already mentioned using garlic and astragalus in your daily/weekly cooking. burdock is another great nourishing root that is quite delicious when cooked right! here’s a great recipe to try it out:
Burdock-n-Wild Rice
2 cups sliced Burdock root (about 4-5 medium-sized roots)
5 or 6 Wild Leeks (can substitute 6-8 cloves garlic)
2 Tbsp olive oil
Thai peanut Sauce* (find at a local co-op or ethnic food section of grocery store)
1 cup wild rice, uncooked
Cover washed and sliced fresh burdock roots in 2 cups water with ½ tsp baking soda. Bring to a boil, pour off the water. Cover with fresh water and boil gently until burdock is very tender, about 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly, put into a skillet. (Note: cast iron may discolor the burdock root)
Add chopped leeks or garlic. Sauté in 2 Tbsp olive oil for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile cook wild rice in 2 cups water, 20-30 minutes. Mix sautéed burdock with cooked rice. Add ½ cup Thai peanut sauce. Serve hot or cold.
*Can substitute any favorite stir-fry sauce for the Thai peanut sauce
burdock root can be found growing all over the place or in your local asian grocer. it is also known as gobo.you can add some chopped root to any soup base. just be sure to follow this method before adding to stocks or soups to make it palatable:
cover washed and sliced fresh burdock roots in 2 cups water with ½ tsp baking soda. bring to a boil, pour off the water. cover with fresh water and boil gently until burdock is very tender, about 10 minutes.
elderberry is another great herb to take that has shown to be prophylactic for the flu. unlike echinacea which should only be taken for a short period of time, elderberry can be taken daily for long periods of time. it’s great as a tincture (glycerin is actually best because it draws out the constituents better than alcohol), syrup or elixir. taking a ‘touch of the recipe’ as the ballwin sisters were known to do on occasion on the waltons, is actually a wise choice for this time of the year, especially when elderberry is involved!
echinacea can be taken as well but i’m backing down on recommending this because of conflicting information about the ‘cytokine storms’ inhibition. i think early on, it is great to help as a preventative but once the flu hits, i would stop use immediately. since this post is already so long, i will not go into detail about this subject but if you are interested in learning more, you can google cytokine storms and echinacea to get more details.
all these factors boil down to having a better chance of avoiding the flu or lessening the duration and severity of it. if you are stricken with the flu, don’t panic, for most of us, a few days in bed, lots of nourishing bone broths and/or miso, herbal teas (think antivirals such as lemon balm, peppermint, licorice, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, boneset, chamomile and st. john’s wort) to help support the body without wildly stimulating the immune system and lots of ginger, garlic, elderberry and astragalus will be the key to a quick recovery and lack of secondary bacterial infections.
next month, i’ll go more in depth on what to do while you have the flu.
Brilliant article, Tansy, thanks! Here in the UK, there has been recent research showing increased skin cancer from using sunning beds and the medics are not recommending their use. It’s difficult to know what to do for best sometimes! I’ll be making up the garlic recipe soon.
sarah – thank you!
i would have never dreamed of recommending a tanning bed because of the cancer risks but paul bergner states:
“Sunlight has UVA and UVB radiation. UVB makes vitamin dD, but it is only present when the angle of the sun is above about 45 degrees. UVA causes burns and also tans. Too much UVA ages and weathers the skin. UVA also causes proliferation of the melanocytes (dark colored cells in the skin) and thus causes a tan. It also can cause skin cancer. A tanning bed of course is not natural, bu the radiation in tanning beds may have both UVA and UVB (you have to ask to make sure). They make some beds with very high UVA and very little UVB, for a super tan. A person with white skin will make a stable maximum of vitamin D, about 20,000 IU, in about 20 minutes of UVB exposure. This is too short a time to burn. A person could do 15-20 minutes in a tanning bed safely without either aging it or promoting cancer. ”
you must specify at the tanning salon that you want the uvb, not the uva bed. some places may not even have them available and some may just have 1 or 2 because there are people who use them specifically for the vitamin d value.
How tanning beds are used can depend on the country though. A friend of mine who lives in Switzerland was horrified to realise when home in Ireland that the beds there are much more powerful. I think people generally just do ten minutes at a time. It’s the kind of thing you pop in to do when out shopping, lots of places have ‘stand-up’ machines. I wasn’t able to find any info online to coorborate this but it might be worth bearing in mind that what is normal use in one country might not be normal in another.
Excellent post! Thanks Tansy 🙂
thank you! i’m glad you enjoyed it.
Smart choices, wonderful article, thank you!
thank you.
Great post and advice. My brother lived in Toronto during SARS, and in the aftermath, he taught me to look at the world differently. For example, never ever hold the handrail on a staircase; you walk with your hand hovering over it, in case you slip and need to grab it, but you never touch it unless you have to.
“Silly” things like this can make a difference, basic personal hygiene is definitely the first and strongest line of defense.
thanks irma! i agree, the silly, no brainer things can make all the difference. it’s good to be reminded of that sometimes!
Loved this post and will keep the info handy! Bone broth soup is a favorite in our house, so adding in some of your other recommendations will be easy. No problems getting those rays down here in FL, but I didn’t know about the echinacea cytokine storms…shall do some further reading up on it since Jack usually waits till after he’s pretty sick to begin taking it. A relative of mine takes goldenseal extract in intervals as a preventive for about everything…what are your feelings about its use to mitigate flu?
Robbyn
thanks! i’m glad it can be of use!
personally, i don’t like to use goldenseal except for extreme cases. it acts like an antibiotic as it will kill all the good flora in your body right along with the bad flora so i reserve goldenseal for acute situations when the others fail me and do so in combination with a lot of probiotics. i don’t think i’d use goldenseal unless a secondary infection set in.
echinacea is best used at the beginning, when you first feel a twinge of something to be effective. waiting to use it after the cold/flu has set in won’t really do much good. if jack were to take it after he got the flu, i don’t think it would do much to get the immune system to respond as it would in the beginning, therefore it wouldn’t really cause the cytokine storm effect as it would taken in the first day or so. in that instance, it might help to ward off any secondary infection for him.
Thanks for this post. As a NY state health care worker I have to get both flu shots this year (seasonal and swine). I really appreciate the info on herbs to take after the vaccine in order to lessen any potential side effects. I am not happy about being forced to get this vaccine, but I really can not afford to loose my job right now (especially since my husband is a health care worker also and must get it).
Thanks again!
Jennifer
i feel for you jennifer. that would be very upsetting for me to be forced into something i wouldn’t want to do. definitely get yourself and husband some thuja to take after getting the vaccines!
Thanks so much…with little ones and big ones to look after this flu season you post was very timely for me, thanks again! Kim
you’re welcome! i’m hoping it will help a lot of people to prepare themselves and get through this and many seasons to come.
Brilliant ideas and tips!
Tansy, thank you for this post. I’m suffering from the flu yet again (twice in less then three months) and just can’t find anything that helps at the moment. Once my eyes stop being so tired, I’ll re-read this!
What a great post, and timely too!
We’re going to attempt growing spinach and other leaves in an unheated hoop house this winter (a la Coleman), so we’ll be getting some Vitamin D. And I am definitely going to make those garlic pickles. Tomorrow!
Can you recommend where I could buy burdock and astragalus?
wonderfully informative post kristing! thank you so much for sharing everything. will make a note of the difference of the tanning bed rays. big herbal and honey hugs to you 🙂
Hi Tansy,
Do I keep the garlic-in-apple-cider-vinegar in the fridge? Or will it be okay in my pantry? Or in that case should I process it in a hot water bath?
Thanks! Can’t wait to taste it. Garlic and honey: my favorites, combined!
it’s fine in the pantry and you don’t need to process it…i’ve had some sitting in mine for a year that’s still very delicious!
[…] pickles: garlic cloves, apple cider vinegar, honey and 12 weeks of waiting (simplest of recipes here). Processed 1/2 bushel (25 lbs) of Farmers Market Cort apples into 9 quarts and 3 pints of […]
Hi,
I am very excited about the garlic! I am wondering…my garlic looks like it has a bluish band on it (it is only the 2nd day) is that normal?
Thanks for your wonderful info!
[…] Back in October I peeled about 50 garlic cloves, which I put in apple cider vinegar in a ball jar, and then plain forgot. You’re supposed to wait for only 6 weeks for the next part, but so we waited a bit longer. Tansy’s recipe is here. […]
[…] is worth a pound of cure! i’ve written a post about what can be done to prevent the flu at not dabbling in normal. beautiful […]