So I wrote a fairly long comment on a recent My Left Wing diary (Question of the Day–Positively sick edition) regarding more natural ways to deal with the common cold/flu thing. A comment that I was just going to leave there even though it is fairly long. And fairly important, as far as I am concerned.
And then I wandered over to Google News and found THIS little gem.
The flu drug’s maker warns of such potential problems as suicide.
By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2006
The maker of the antiviral medication Tamiflu issued a new warning for the flu drug Monday, saying patients must be closely monitored for potential psychiatric problems, including delirium and suicide.
Hoffman-La Roche Inc. had been discussing the matter with the Food and Drug Administration, which has been reviewing 103 cases in which patients reported bizarre behavior, usually within a day of taking Tamiflu.
Most cases involved children under 17 and occurred in Japan. The cases include three people who fell to their deaths after taking the drug, including a 14-year-old boy who climbed atop the railing of his family’s condominium, an FDA memo says.
The memo also cites the case of an 8-year-old in Japan who took one dose of Tamiflu and, about an hour and a half later, tried to run out the front door of his home. The child would not answer to his name and was growling, according to the memo, which was prepared in advance of an FDA pediatric advisory committee meeting Thursday.
—snip—
And I figured…what the hell.
Maybe I might reach ONE person more if I posted it as a diary.
Soooo…here it is.
Read on.
And be well with it.
OK…
I have just about given up trying to communicate the almost absolute non-necessity of getting “sick”…the sick that is called a cold (or even the flu) here in the great Untied States of Duhmerica and most of the rest of the overdeveloped world as well, but…what the hell.
Here goes.
If you are not too socialized/hypnotized to hear and actually try this, all I can say to you is that it works. I went from 3-5 infections of that sort a year to damned near zero. For over ten years and counting.
And if you are in some sort of social trance that precludes you from even looking at and comprehending these words…gesundheit!!!
God bless you.
‘Cuz you’re gonna need it.
Everyone has a habitual “first symptom” that tells them they are getting sick. (Again…the regular, recurrent, relatively mild trillions-of-dollars-a-year sick upon which Dr. Big Brother bases his Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. The more serious stuff…? Well, if you can beat the regular bringer-downers, you will remain strong enough to beat most of the bad stuff as well. That’s the theory…)
For most of us, that first symptom is a little tickle in the back of the throat.
YOU know the one…up high, near the eustachian tube areas.
Right. THAT one.
That is the first attack of the virii. Whether you inhaled them or put them in your mouth, that’s the first (and best) dark, wet, warm place where they can set up housekeeping and raise the beginnings of their little extended family.
At THAT MOMENT…not a few minutes or an hour or half a day later, but right then (Or at least as soon as you can possibly do it.)…here’s whatcha do.
Get the little pill bottle that you ALWAYS carry that has cayenne pepper, golden seal and echinacea capsules in it (Available and relatively cheap at any health food store. Get the good stuff, not the bullshit versions that you might see at your local chain pharmacy.), and do the following.
Empty one cayenne pepper capsule in about 1/2 a glass of hottish water. Drinkable hot, not scalding hot. Stir it in well and then THOROUGHLY gargle with it. DEEP gargle, right on down as far as you can get without swallowing. Several times.
Now right here I where usually begin to see the eyes glaze over in an advertising-induced coma when I try to tell most people about this. “Oh. Right. I’m gonna burn the shit out of my mouth because this nut tells me to. And then get sick anyway.” All’s I can say is…this flat out works. But not if you do not try it.
Plus…the “burn” is minor and lasts all of five minutes.
But…as you must. If you would prefer to be sick for a week or more…go to it. Everybody needs a hobby.
After the burn is gone…and NOT UNTIL it is gone…make a mild saline solution (about the salinity of sea water) and gargle with that as well.
Five minutes or so later, take two golden seal and two echinacea capsules.
And then proceed to give your system a break.
No alcohol or drugs, LOTS of clean fluids, easy on the eating, high fiber food if anything (Fruit, brown rice, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables…YOU know…), easy on the red meat, organic food if at all possible, and no more than it takes to keep your energies up and flowing. Plus…back off of unnecessary exertion and get some good sleep.
And, if you are still smoking tobacco…well, if you are still strung out on THAT poison you are almost unreachable anyway, but if perhaps you DO dimly hear this advice through the cloud of nicotine-induced unknowing in which you lead your life…FUCKING STOP IT!!! At least until you beat the infection that has commenced to fuck up your week.
If you still feel the discomfort in your throat a few hours later…repeat the whole process. As LONG as you feel it, which for me is never, ever more than a few hours.
Take the same dose of golden seal and echinacea…preferably after eating something so that it doesn’t just pass through your system unused…every few hours for a couple of days as well, and stay clean. A mild laxative…a bulk laxative like psyillium seeds or Metamucil is preferable, rather than a drug…will help also.
And…dassit.
Ten years now…
Not so much as a sniffle, as long as I DO this and don’t fuck off.
Good luck…you either do it or you don’t.
This is the first step to understanding that almost ALL non-structural illness is merely a cleansing crisis.
We are none of us any more than walking bags of shit. We are exposed to so many “germs” in our day-to-day, so-called civilized lives that it is a small miracle any of us can function at all.
But most of the time our immune system simply says to them “OK. You there. Up against the wall and hands in the air.”
And flushes them right out with the rest of the crap in our bodies.
However, when we let ourselves get internally filthy and physically run-down…and once again, this is almost unavoidable in the modern world with all of its stresses and poisons…the immune system breaks down a little from too much work fighting the ongoing biological crime wave and we get “sick.”
Give it a break!!!
You can always fuck up next week.
Have fun…
AG
P.S. A little common sense will help too…frequent and thorough washing of the hands when in public places, keeping your UNwashed hands the fuck out of your mouth and nose and off of your food, stepping away from hacking, sneezing fools when you encounter them on a bus or subway or in a room…
You don’t have to turn into some Howard Hughes asshole to stay healthy.
You just have to…stay healthy.
Good luck.
SOMETHING’S gonna getcha anyway.
NOBODY’S getting outta this thing alive.
You may as well at least try to be healthy while you’re waiting.
Duh.
P.P.S. There was a study done somewhere…Japan, I think…which came to the conclusion that if everyone damped their sneezes in their shoulder and upper arm, the airborne “common cold” would become extinct within a decade of so.
Fat chance THAT will ever get any publicity.
Dr. Big Brother not only wants to make you crazy…he wants to keep you sick, too.
I mean, after all…where’s the profit in WELL people?