We all get sick. Unfortunately, some of us get sick more often than others. But regardless of how often a cold or flu gets you down or how long it keeps you ‘under the weather’, here are 5 things you need to do at the first sign of getting sick.
Slow Down
When a cold or infection first sets in, it’s often obvious right away. The good thing is that your body doesn’t delay at giving you signals that there’s something going on. Often, even before a cold fully sets in, you will notice your body abruptly starts to feel really tired and sluggish. Some people experience this as muscle tiredness or soreness over the entire body, while others simply notice very tired eyes, and a lack of overall energy to get things done. Either way, it’s your immune system priming itself to fight the impending infection that tends to cause much of the fatigue and lack of energy. When this happens, and as difficult or inconvenient as it may be for many, it’s your body that is telling you to slow down. So stop what you’re doing, have a rest, cut your work day short, or do whatever you can to help you immune system do what it needs to do in order to maximize its potential to clear the virus quick.
Treat With Antivirals Right Away
The category of antivirals are different when it comes to conventional versus naturopathic medicine. Although conventional antivirals can work well, this category of drugs aren’t used to help treat a common cold. Rather, pharmaceutical antivirals are reserved for more severe, systemic infections. Naturopathic antivirals, however, are used as evidenced based first line treatments for cases such as the common cold. Because most colds and immune infections are viral (rather than bacterial) based, naturopathic antivirals work wonders, and especially well at the first signs of getting sick. Your exact symptoms will help decipher which antivirals will work best (all are not created equal), and the bonus is that many naturopathic antivirals not only target the virus itself, but help support and stimulate your immune system to do what it needs to do. Using naturopathic antivirals at the first signs of getting sick can often predictably shut down the virus altogether from ever becoming an issue or causing you to get sick at all.
Rest
To reiterate, it’s your immune system that requires the most support to fight off a virus or cold. One of the most effective ways to provide your immune system what it needs is to allow your body to rest. This is why sleep is absolutely critical during the initial phases of a cold or flu. Sleep as much as you can, rest throughout the day, and most importantly, take a day or two off work, preventatively, in order to fully recover before a cold or flu fully exacerbates and ends up keeping you down for days or weeks on end. I personally would much rather miss one or two consecutive days of work versus having to take multiple days off from being sick over the course of many weeks.
Stay Hydrated And Eat For your Immune System
Being sick is one thing, but being sick and dehydrated is a whole other issue. At the first signs of getting sick, your body’s internal temperature will rise in order to create an uninhabitable environment for a virus to survive. This, in essence, causes a ‘drying’ or dehydrating effect within the body, so it’s critical to ensure you stay hydrated with water, coconut water, herbal non caffeinated tea, or ginger ale. Sip often and sip regularly. In addition, your body is also trying to minimize potential calories and sugars viruses use to feed on in order to grow and replicate. The immune system also dislikes a sugar burden load and will work much better when less calories, but more nutritiously dense foods are consumed. Because of this, it’s imperative to listen to your body, so if your appetite seems low, then it is a completely normal and adaptable process that is occurring. Foods that you do eat should include immune boosting foods and components to help support the immune system and to directly offset the potential for infection to take over.
Get An Immune Boosting IV
The difference we often see between those who quickly beat a cold versus those who don’t, is that those who come in to receive an immune boosting IV do much better than those who don’t. By safely infusing very specific immune and antiviral compounds directly into the bloodstream, not only are you now covering all essential bases, but your making up for some areas of deficiency that you were not able to fulfill based on the other recommendations above. There is more than enough scientific and clinical evidence that confirms that by receiving an immune boosting IV, the extent and duration of a potential infection will be reduced and often stopped in its tracks.
In order not to let an infection or cold get ahead of you, it’s an absolute must to employ the 5 suggestions above at the first signs of getting sick. 9 times out of 10, a day or two of active and aggressive therapy and medicine will be more than worth the alternative of having to deal with a long, drawn out, inconvenient cold or flu.