My son came home from grandma and grandpa’s house at 2:45 am recently. They said that he was crying and coughing and that he couldn’t stop himself. Since he has asthma every time he gets hit by a virus (a cold, in this case), my parents had done several inhaler treatments throughout the day, following his morning announcement that he had a “sore throat,” always a bad signal in our house. A parent of a child with virus-induced asthma knows that a simple cold will be anything but boring.
As a mother of an asthmatic child, I do whatever it takes to keep viruses at bay. It’s not so easy here in the Midwest when we spend a lot of time together indoors for the middle of the year.
Here are some of the techniques I use now to get over a cold.
1. Take a warm bath in the morning and at night until you feel better.
2. Blow your nose until it’s clean.
3. Take the acetaminophen/ibuprofen without (much) complaint.
4. Sit under a towel with a steaming bowl of water and eucalyptus essential oils for a few minutes throughout the day with a damp washcloth pressed to one side of your face. (More on this below)
5. Let me rub some kind of oil on the tip of my nose/upper lip. (again, below)
The warm bath is relaxing, helps distract you from feeling sick, and loosens congestion. Nose blowing is just obvious; Get that crap out of there, for God’s sake! The constant flow of pain relievers/fever reducers helps your body focus on healing, not on managing the sore throat/congestion in the face/head area. Yes, I’m all for letting the body do its job of fending off those pesky viruses on its own, but allowing a child to cry/suffer with fever/congestion/pain doesn’t seem like a smart way to handle things. I know that fever is the body’s natural defense and that it is good for us. Save it for the adults, I say. What culture has ever existed that didn’t do what it could to relieve pain? I don’t know of any, except (maybe) the Shakers, and, well, most of them are gone. Will a child grow up to be a better person and have a stronger constitution if he has these? Maybe. For my part, I give my son a painkiller and take it myself when I need it. Kids, especially, need to “be tough,” in my opinion, but that can be encouraged when it comes to a scrape, bloody knee/elbow, or injection at the doctor’s office.
As for the eucalyptus oil, I don’t use too much of it, just a couple of drops in the glass container (okay, it’s a rectangular Pyrex type container) after the 1 or 2 inches of water has been microwaved. I have my son lie on his stomach in bed with a pillow between him and the water, or if it’s daytime, he sits at the table with it. I cover it with a towel and set the timer on the stove for about 3 minutes. The towel is the size of a standard bath, so plenty of air still gets in. Once this is done, we do the nose blowing, and then I apply whatever oil we have on hand, usually scented with a few drops of lavender as well. Lavender is soothing and slightly speeds healing, and is especially effective when the skin is damp from steam. Doing this helps my son keep his nose from getting red and swollen from blowing/wiping vigorously with old tissues or the (tasteful) roll of toilet paper that is a constant companion in our house every time. who gets cold Oh, I forgot to mention that if my son complains that one area of his face hurts, like one side or the other due to sinus congestion, I also ask him to hold a microwaved wipe to the area, while he is under the towel. He doesn’t know it, but I add a bit of olive (or other) oil to the cloth, along with a bit of lavender to make him smell nice. Once again, my focus is on advancing the healing process.
As for our environment, I do a few things in my attempts to stop the spread of the disease. I say attempts as we tend to share here. As soon as my son gets up, I open the windows in his bedroom to let in fresh air. I put a new pillowcase on his kid-sized pillow so he’ll have something clean to lie on later, and because pillowcases often double as Kleenex, too, when no one’s looking. I clean common door handles/light switches and always have a separate hand towel for my son. However, I know that he often forgets to use his, so he takes out a new one every day.
Chicken soup, of course, is a must, as is a cup of tea morning and night. In the case of our son, I encourage him to drink it without complaint (after all, that’s ANOTHER thing to do!) by leaving him with a spoonful of honey, local of course, and pouring/stirring the tea. He is 6 years old, and that may seem a bit dangerous, but we are talking about a small pitcher of water with ½ inch of water at best. We were out of honey when this most recent virus appeared. Once the weekend was over, my son and I drove a few miles to the honey lady’s house and picked up 3 pounds. – only $9. I see it as a little adventure for us (him) and as a way to encourage the old honey lady to keep doing what she does.
I would say that we spend half an hour in the morning and then in the evening on the tasks mentioned above. I make the time to do this because we go through a cold in about 3 days when I follow these steps. A mild cough may persist, but I generally stop giving any pain relievers, etc., by the end of day 2, and can stop excessive baths/steam treatments by the end of day 3.
I hope the tips above help you have your best cold and manage your asthma.
