I'm sick. Again. I felt the stirrings of a cold beast in my throat a little over a week ago. It was one of those "oh no, I know I'm getting sick and it's completely unavoidable and there's nothing I can do to prevent what's a'comin'" moments. It's always the same story. Each day brings a new symptom in the stage of cold sickness. Itchy/scratchy throat, dripping sinuses, stuffy head, sneezing and nose blowing in copious amounts while it gets continually harder to swallow and talk, glands get swollen, hard to sleep at night because of all the sinus pressure, you want to scrape your throat out with a spoon to relieve the raw pain, coughing at night and sniffling disgusting amounts, jaw and neck pain from being so tense, etc. etc. etc. It's never a sunny looking prospect for the next week when you know you're going to be sick. But I had auditions, and lots of them. I HAD to sing! I was not going to let my body screw me over in this manner again.
I already have a small arsenal of remedies and products I use to try to stave off such illnesses, but they obviously have never been very successful. Sinus cleanses, gargling with salt water, drinking tea and water, and taking mucinex, tylenol, and an assortment of coughdrops. These gave some relief, but never helped all that much. So I took to Facebook and my network of friends to help me out with their home remedy sickness solutions. I went to the market and bought fresh ginger, and at Bed, Bath, and Beyond I loaded up on three new and different types of medicated cough drops: Chloraseptic Warming Sore Throat (honey lemon), Cold-Eeze (zinc gluconate glycine), and Smith Brothers warm apple pie warming throat drops (pectin).
I boiled water and added in shavings and chunks of the fresh ginger, steeping it for about 5 minutes. The first cup of fresh ginger tea I drank straight. But subsequent cups I made so strong that I added a spoonful of the fresh summer/fall honey from the Union Square Farmer's Market and that was an even better and more soothing combination. The Cold-Eeze zinc drops (in strawberries and cream flavor), were delicious at first, but the more I had, the funkier the taste got. I'm not sure if it's because my taste buds are kinda wonky because of being sick, or if the zinc coating my throat is a foreign thing to my body, but it left my tongue and mouth feeling really weird - but it did seem to help. The Chloraseptic drops I was not a fan of at first, the flavor seemed really weird and strong. But they really helped soothe my sore throat for long periods of time, and the more I had, the better the taste was. I'm currently sucking on a Warm Applie Pie w/ pectin drop, and it's pretty delicious. There are also bits of cinnamon in it, and already my throat has lost the scratchy/sore feeling it had when I first woke up. I'm also trying to eat well (I generally eat very healthily, anyway), and stay away from dairy products as they really make things a whole lot worse - coating everything in a gunky, bad way and glopping everything together. Yeah, not good news. Maybe I'm just prolonging the inevitable, but it has been great to be "sick" yet still able to function at almost 100% capacity for the past week instead of laid up in bed completely miserable. I'm also not sure how much of this is allergy related - because NY has pretty much decided Spring starts NOW - which I absolutely love, but that means a whole lot of stuff is being released into the air and messin' with my sinuses.
So, I wish you all health and wealth. And if you feel yourself feeling under the weather, try some new remedies - you never know what will help!