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Need help with a sore throat
Godfather
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So this is my first time being sick away from home. It started last thursday evening innocently enough; I was out drawing in the park with a few buddies of mine when i noticed that I was starting to lose my voice. I wake up the next day to a mild fever (100 degrees) and a painful throat (the fever dropped by the way). Luckily I went traveling around with a buddy of mine that day, and along the way we picked up some Robitussin because all of my symptoms fit the description on the box.
I've been taking this medicine since friday night and I haven't been noticing too much of a difference. Part of me wants to simply wait it out while the week goes by, but I have school monday through thursday and i'm probably going to be needing to make a stronger effort to get rid of this thing. My parents told me that Vitamin C helps a lot, so i've been drinking Orange Juice every chance I get. Since today's my day off from classes I can crash at the apartment, doing a lot of homework and basically sitting this problem out.
I need to know what else I can do to get myself in better shape. Is Robitussin enough, should I switch to another brand, or am I simply being impatient? What are some things I should be eating and things I should stay away from for the time being? Since i'll probably be going to school with this, I need to know what are some good things to pack for lunch. I know in the states they had those Cambell's to-go soups, but up here in Canada i've yet to see anything like it.
What can I do to get rid of this dry cough/sore throat problem?
I've been taking this medicine since friday night and I haven't been noticing too much of a difference. Part of me wants to simply wait it out while the week goes by, but I have school monday through thursday and i'm probably going to be needing to make a stronger effort to get rid of this thing. My parents told me that Vitamin C helps a lot, so i've been drinking Orange Juice every chance I get. Since today's my day off from classes I can crash at the apartment, doing a lot of homework and basically sitting this problem out.
I need to know what else I can do to get myself in better shape. Is Robitussin enough, should I switch to another brand, or am I simply being impatient? What are some things I should be eating and things I should stay away from for the time being? Since i'll probably be going to school with this, I need to know what are some good things to pack for lunch. I know in the states they had those Cambell's to-go soups, but up here in Canada i've yet to see anything like it.
What can I do to get rid of this dry cough/sore throat problem?
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zinc acts as a growth suppressant. It might help.
We have them up in Canada. Maybe you're just looking in the wrong places or unlucky with poor store stock. Pretty much every Safeway in Edmonton carries them.
I'm actually more concerned with what i'm going to eat during the course of the week. If I stick to sandwich stuff it's only going to hurt my chances of losing this thing faster.
Actually, get two thermos bottles and fill the other one with soup.
sliced/minced ginger root
Coca-Cola (caffeine-free if you prefer, but DO NOT use diet)
Get a pot. Pour the soda in it. Put the ginger in it. Bring it to a boil until the gas is completely released from the soda and the smell of ginger is exploding from the pot (this is an actual cosmic event - trust me). Drink the resulting liquid. You will like it, I promise you.
There are some variations on this recipe floating around. Some people add garlic as well as ginger, and some people will "thin out" the soda by adding some water (although it's really not all that thick without additional water). You can also add some freshly-squeezed lemon, but make sure you do this directly in the cup, right before you are about to drink it (i.e. don't cook the lemon juice). Ditto honey.
And yes, this really is a Chinese thing. My mom used to make this for me all the time when I was a kid, and we never had soda in the house - she'd literally go buy soda just for when we were sick to make this stuff.
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Another ancient Chinese secret is eating congee when you're sick. If you have a slow-cooker, you pretty much can't mess this up. If you don't have a slow cooker, it might be too much work for you since you're sick and it requires a bit of tending-to (i.e. visiting the pot every few minutes and stirring it). Congee (aka jook or juk in Cantonese) is basically overboiled rice. You boil the rice in slightly more broth/water than is usual to cook it, bring it to a boil, then turn it down to a low simmer and wait for the grain structure to break down until it becomes mealy, similar to porridge. How mealy is entirely up to how long you cook it, but I always preferred a really well-cooked jook with something like 1.5-2 hours of total cooking time.
All you really need is broth/water and rice, but feel free to add whatever foods you want. My mom used to get leftover meats and the like and just dump them in. If you have leftover bones from other meals, those really add some nice depth to the broth as well. Oh yeah, adding some salt before the cooking process will really help it along. It's really hard to oversalt jook, but it's possible, and once you've crossed that bridge you can't really go back, so just add in a few pinches depending upon how much you're making and then season afterwards to your preference. Ginger root and garlic are pretty common to add, and green onion can be added at the end for additional flavor as well. Really it's up to you. Jook is really treated as the ultimate leftover meal, but it's great for when you're sick because of the consistency and the savory warmthness of the whole thing. I think in India they actually make jook sweet, as a desert or something.
I'm asking because this is something I might actually try tonight.
Ginger root. The best part about ginger root is you can buy one root, cut out what you need, then wrap the rest in saran wrap and dump it in the freezer. It'll last for eternity. I hope this helps!
Mug 3/4 full of steaming hot water
Teaspoon of lemon juice
Teaspoon of honey
1 shot of Amaretto (the almond liqueur that comes in the square bottle with the square cap)
Repeat until symptoms improve or you are too sloshed to care.
Unless they sell smaller thermoses, I can't pick them up mainly because I have nowhere to store it at school.
They only had regular, non sliced ginger root, so I just naturally assume I just dice it up and throw it in the ginger ale? Should I dice it or will slices of ginger root work fine?
EDIT: I just sliced it and threw them in. Boiling as we speak!
Yeah, you gotta cut it yourself, ya lazy bum. =P I'm curious to hear if you like it or not. I've never tried it with ginger ale, so YMMV?
I'm guessing it rids the throat as time goes by? How many days does it take before I start seeing some results?