Whiskey, Cayenne Muscle Rub
★★★★★
I was talking to a friend's mom, Nancy (80 years old), and she was telling me about how people treated the flu back in her day.
She said: My X-husband (in the 1960-70) and I would get sick with the flu. He would drink whiskey and had me rub athletic hot muscle rub all over him and wrapped himself in a flannel sheet and by morning, he was well. I wouldn't do it and I was still sick for a week or two.
Nancy does not remember the brand of muscle rub, only that it was hot, not cool. I am assuming it was a capsaicin based ointment. She said he was a body builder and had a lot of herbal supplements and it came in a tub.
“Cramer Red Hot Sports Ointment” or possibly “Watkins Red Liniment” has capsaicin and has been around sine 1900 and is still on the market so I'll assume it was a product like that.
Believe it or not, whiskey was considered a cure for the flu. Ever heard of a Hot Toddy? I've read nursing journals during the 1918 Spanish flu, where even the nurses mention sick people in quarantine camps drinking hard liquors and never getting sick with the Spanish flu. It's the alcohol! Alcohol is a disinfectant. It kills germs.
Cayenne (capsaicin) has warming properties, it also acts as a catalyst to the body, stimulating the immune and cardiovascular systems in particular. It has antiseptic properties and can help with congestion (Gladstar, 2008).
In old England, Cayenne was called “Ginnie pepper” since it was purchased from “Guinea, ” or the Indies. Being official in both the United States and British pharmacopeias (even until the 1950's), Cayenne was an ingredient in many of the cure-all remedies of the last century.
Gerard mentioned it as being cultivated in his time (Gri: 175). It is used in folk medicine in various parts of the world, notably Greece, Italy, and parts of Russia, where it is steeped in Vodka and drunk as a tonic in wine glassful doses (Hut:68). It is especially valued in the West Indies there for deadly fevers, especially yellow fever, of which the native people have no fear as long as they have a goodly supply of Capsicum (Ibid.).
Yogurt
★★★★★
Zinc
★★★★★
However, taking the ZP capsules stops the sore throat for me, and I suppose any virus before it can go to the lungs and be a chest cold.
Or as a maintenance dose taken daily every 6 hours, ZP prevents a sore throat from happening to me entirely in the first place.
For me, 6 hours maximum seemed to be the best dosage interval for ZP to maintain it's effectiveness.
As mentioned in a different thread, I reversed a sore throat 3 or 4 times last winter (2021-22) by taking PipingRock's 50 mg zinc picolinate capsules internally. The dose was 400 mg per day, which was 2 capsules every 6 hours. I noticed no side-effects on the 2 capsule dose, although 400 mg per day seemed like barely enough to overcome the sore throat.
So this fall/winter I have increased the dose to 600 mg per day which is three 50 mg capsules, every 6 hours which is 4 times per day.
Plus or minus 2 hours for each, I prefer using 6 AM, 6 PM, 12 AM and 12 PM for my dosage times.
I noticed that at the 3 capsule dose, I have to take the three capsules on a mostly empty stomach or before a meal and not after, or indigestion can occur. I believe food in itself is inflammatory, and that ZP could act to detoxify the food and cause indigestion.
Also, some loose bowels happened at first at that 3 capsule dose, which since went away, similar to the bowel tolerance dose of taking ascorbic acid vitamin C.
Other than that, I am confident that taking enough ZP could be the cure for the common cold/flu or things worse like Covid and variants.
I also tried taking zinc citrate powder last winter and it did nothing against the sore throat, so I quickly switched back to taking the ZP.
I am not concerned about a zinc overload or overdose because I feel fine and I accept the risks, if any, and especially if the ZP is being utilized which it obviously is, in deactivating the sore throats, colds, flus and worse.
Actually, I stopped taking the zinc picolinate on Nov 3, 2022 because of indigestion.
I will still try taking ZP for any sore throats but probably at the 2 capsule dose of 400 mg per day instead of 600 mg per day.
Zinc
★★★★★