A Natural Approach to Healing Sickness

Just a few weeks back, my wife remarked that it had been a year since any member of our family had suffered from a cold. She remembered clearly, because she had just got over her last cold as she was preparing to travel to Perth to celebrate her niece’s birthday. That particular cold had done the rounds of the family, and since then, we hadn’t had any more.

No doubt this is largely due to Covid and all the related events that transpired as a result. If you so much as sniffed in public, you were met with glares. To enter many buildings such as hospitals, dentists or oesteopaths, you had to answer a series of Covid-related questions, including whether you had recently experienced cold or flu-like symptoms in the last fourteen days. This meant that most people who were sick stayed home, instead of venturing out in public and spreading their germs, which is ordinarily the case.

Aside from that, for the majority of last year, there really weren’t that many places us Victorians were allowed to actually go to! Schools were closed, social visits were out, and hospitality and entertainment venues were off limits. We just weren’t mingling with other members of the public as much as we would in a normal year.

Then, one morning last week, it happened. “Mummy, I’ve got a sore throat”. Little Miss Six was the first to fall in over a year. She seemed like her usual self in the morning, and was even outside, riding her bike and running around the backyard with her brothers. As the day wore on, though, she began to feel worse and worse. She developed a fever and lay on the couch, out of action–totally unlike her. She lost her appetite and hardly touched her food all day.

However, through careful nursing, Little Miss Six was back to her old self in a matter of days.

Here’s what we did:

At the first sign of illness–i.e., as soon as she complained of a sore throat–we gave Little Miss Six our Echinacea Plus tincture. When we take echinacea, the body increases its production of white blood cells, and gets ready to fight off infection. We also made sure all other members of the family (aside from the baby, who gets the same benefits from breastfeeding from his mother) took the Echinacea Plus as well. The idea here is that it strengthens our respective immune systems to prevent us getting sick, or to lessen the severity of the illness if we did catch it.

One principle of natural healing is that when one member of the household is sick, all other family members should be treated as if they were sick too, to fortify their immune systems. This means taking the same supplements as the sick person (perhaps in smaller quantities, though), being conscious of diet (sugary foods should be avoided, for example, as sugar compromises the immune system), and getting enough sleep and rest.

We made sure that Little Miss Six, as well as everyone else in the family (again, baby excluded), took regular doses of our Nature’s Vitamin C. It is well-known that Vitamin C strengthens the immune system. A whole-food Vitamin C source like Nature’s Vitamin C allows the phytonutrients of all the herbs to work synergistically, just like nature intended. The children were a little hesitant to take the Vitamin C at first, afraid that it would taste too strong or unpleasant, but they were quickly relieved to discover that it is actually rather nice!

One very important thing we did was ensure that Little Miss Six ate minimal food that day. This wasn’t difficult, as she lost her appetite. Depriving the body of food during a fever allows it to concentrate its energy on executing its immune system response, rather than on digesting food. It is far more important to keep up liquid consumption–particularly when a fever is involved. To this end, we offered her frequent sips of water, along with our Mountain Nutrition Superfood drink. This flooded her body with bioavailable nutrients, and gave her some energy, since she wasn’t getting any from food.

We kept a close eye on her temperature, but didn’t do anything to bring it down. When we are sick with any form of infection, the body raises our temperature for a reason. A fever triggers cellular mechanisms to make sure the immune system takes appropriate action against the offending virus or bacteria.

So many parents administer pain relief to their children at the first sign of fever. This is understandable, as no parent likes to see their child suffer–and there is no denying that pain relievers do indeed help to allay the symptoms. However, it is ultimately preventing the body from working in the way it was made to. In many cases, this can prolong the illness. It is making the body go into battle without its weapons.

Providing the child stays hydrated and the temperature is being monitored closely, there is no reason to run and grab a bottle of pain relief. If the temperature begins to rise to a worrying level, cooling down the child with a tepid face washer or an icy pole can help to lower it gently. Personally, I would consider administering pain relief if the fever began to climb higher than I was comfortable with, and fail to come down despite the aforementioned methods, but not before then.

We made sure that Little Miss Six spent time resting and napping, rather than running around. We wanted her body to use its energy for getting her well, after all–and an illness is the body’s way of telling us to slow down.

With all these precautions, Little Miss Six was back to her normal self before we knew it; her sore throat disappeared and the mild case of sniffles that she developed was over with in a matter of days. Likewise, Mr. Four, who caught the same bug a few days later, bounced back even more quickly–possibly due to his immune system being fortified with good food, Echinacea Plus, Nature’s Vitamin C and Mountain Nutrition each day since we realised that Little Miss Six was first sick.

While colds and fevers can be annoying, they are nature’s way of detoxifying and spring cleaning the body. Using natural healing, though, we can make them less severe and shorten their duration.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply