Allow me to have a little rant.
I have been coughing non-stop for the past four days. I’m losing sleep, getting crankier by the day, and woefully missing my morning swims. Last night was the worst. The cough roused me at least once every 30-minutes. At around 4 a.m. I grew desperate. This is the UK, so no 24-hour CVS pharmacies would save me with a solid dose of Nyquil. In my hazy state I googled for “cough remedies” and found a few home cures for dry coughs.
The most interesting “cure” was this homemade cough syrup from a book called Herbally Yours, made by mixing the following ingredients:
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons water
The recipe was posted on a website which, with its turquoise background and liberal use of the Times font, was clearly not professionally produced. Still, I had desperate hopes that the author, one Bonnie K. McMillen of the University of Pittsburg, was a better judge of folk remedies than she was a website designer. Indeed, Bonnie wrote the words that I longed to hear:
I took 3 teaspoons the first time because I had a bad dry cough for over three weeks, and I was desparate for some relief. It worked and I got a good night’s sleep. I have been recommending it to others ever since, and many have confirmed my positive results.
So there I was, at four in the morning, grating ginger into my Pyrex cauldron, hoping this brew would put me to sleep for a long long time.
Surprisingly, the concoction tasted sort of good. I almost liked the sour vinegar with the spicy cayenne pepper. I took a few swigs then crawled under my blanket on the couch (sparing Tim the wrath of my throatal fury) and promptly started coughing again. This went on until about 6:30am, when I eventually gave up and said hello to a brand new day.
(cough. grunt.)
Now that I think about it, I’m kind of embarrassed that I bothered with the Bonnie’s magical elixer. I really wanted to believe it, you know?
Most of all, I didn’t want to shell out £3 for a bottle of night-time cough syrup. But that’s precisely what I did this afternoon. I hope we return soon to our regularly scheduled, fully functional, and very well-rested schedule.
Do you guys have any home remedies that you swear by? Tell us all about them in the comments.
My wife swears by this one when she’s got a sinus cold:
Mug of OJ + Spoonful of Honey + Dash of Cayenne + 90 seconds in the microwave = Sinus clearing steam and throat soothing vitamin c boost.
Enjoy!
I have a lot of ear issues with clogged Eustacian tubes. Some old person told me to cut up an onion, put it in a sock, and put it underneath my head while I slept. I smelled like onion for a full week, and it did not fix the problem.
I will remember cayenne pepper for the next time I have a cold, but usually lemon, honey and a dash of whiskey is my remedy. If nothing else, the whiskey usually helps me get to sleep.
Ah Hank! The Hot Toddy! Now that’s a remedy I might experiment with tonight… (Tim’s whiskey collection is woefully underutilized. I should get sick more often!)