Doctors advise against using cough syrups

[Corey]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060109/cough_syrups_060109/20060109?hub=CTVNewsAt11

What blows me away about this is that smart doctors have known this fact for decades. I've never used any of that stuff because of the complete lack of any evidence that they work. I'm amazed that it took *decades* for doctors to respond publicly like this. Reminds me of medieval times. Snake oil anyone? :)

Even more flabbergasting is that some doctors have announced they'll still be recommending cough syrups for small kids despite this.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

--drinking lots of fluids and visiting a doctor if the cough persists.
Now that's some sane talk. Sleep and fluids will fix a quick cold as well as anything and develops your body's ability to deal with this stuff naturally. Whereas reliance on drugs inhibits your natural healing processes, sometimes permanently. :yes

[Dermot]

It has been known for years that suppressing a cough is bad and that is what most cough syrups do. Better to cough it up than to suppress it and keep it in your lungs.

[Corey]

Precisely.

[Intrigued]

(Alert! I am not a doctor and do not try this at home, in your car, flying, or listening to Corey's of I.R. fame excellent AMS training CDs)

I also heard it's better to take vinegar (teaspoon) for heartburn than other over-the-counter remedies.

Urban legend? I wonder!

:D

[Corey]

I think baking soda is the thing for heartburn. Or anything with bicarbonate in it. Bicarbonate is a base which neutralizes the acid. I believe that vinegar is a weak (acetic) acid and so would be the opposite of what you want to use for heartburn, it will likely make it worse. Vinegar as a natural healing ingredient is used mainly as an antiseptic I think. I'm no expert on any of this so I may be completely wrong, this is just my extremely peripheral understanding of it. :yes

One thing I am 100% certain of is that vinegar rocks on home fries. Mmmmmm, hoooome fries... [droooool] :yes

[Eagle]

Ginger is a very effective-gentle on the system remedy for
stomach and digestive system 'upsets' ..you can buy ginger tablets,
also good for those who suffer from 'travel sickness'.

Ginger with some soda water..that often is a goodie.

Decongestants are worthwhile if that is what the problem is,

Peppermint - leaf-tea, or even Tic Tacs is one natural alternative for that.

Vinegar is a natural disinfectant and also excellent for topical application for stings,
bee stings, jelly fish, chinese burns, or the wife telling you off...

Doctor Marty's free consultation service :lol

[Corey]

Ginger is great. :yes

[Eagle]

tennesse whisky..that could fix a few things and a green apple :yes

Cellery is a goodie to alleviate fliud retention and a bit of a system cleanser-trigger.

If ya got a cold or 'chest' ..stay of all dairy products for a while..specially ice cream or cream dishes.

One of the first things taught in Natural medicine is limit the amount of dairy products
we ingest ...go soy products if palatable.

[Corey]

Hee. Definitely make you forget what's wrong anyhow... :D

[Eagle]

How do you folk in the Icy North get on with 'fruit and veg' in the long Winter,
eating 'seasonal fruit and veg' is another natural rule of thumb :yes

Things I would imagine get a bit limited as in 'fresh' ?

forgive my ignorance here...

[Corey]

It's pretty good here depending on where you shop. Calgary is a major international town because we are Canada's petroleum capital. We are also on the Trans-Canada highway so we get tons of stuff from B.C. and Vancouver, which is of course a major international port. When I lived in Edmonton it was much more limited.

I don't eat meat so I hunt out various fruits and veggies year round. I'm really lucky because I live very close to a discount veggie mart where the owners buy overage from the docks in Vancouver and drive it here mutiple times per day. It's real cheap and decent. But the selection is sometimes limited, although they always have at least 30-40 different fuits/veggies. I eat bagged salads and canned beans too, so there's tons of variety there. My fave is a bagged salad called "Veggie Lovers" which comes with whole peapods, radishes, big chunks of carrots, etc. I usually eat a variety to maintain some balance. I also drink fortified soy milks, they contain *tons* of stuff. Honestly I don't eat a huge quantity of food and I enjoy everything, so I find it pretty easy to get around what I need. Heck, in a pinch I can even enjoy a 7-11 burrito with potato chips. :yes

Also I put vegetarian yeast on my salads, that contains red star and some other stuff. Lots of B vitamins and it's yummy, tastes kind of like cheese. Past that we have some premium organic stores which cost about 10% more than normal but their selection is amazing, you can get anything, anytime... The organic market here gets weekly shipments from around the world. :yes

That all being said, there's certain things you will *never* get here. Such as a good fresh coconut. And much of the fruit we get here is admittedly of very mediocre in quality. :)

[Eagle]

Sounds like some good eat'n goin on there :yes

I was curious as to what was available and frequency, thanks for the info. :)

[Corey]

The thing about Canada is that if you live in one of the major centers like Vancouver, Calgary, or Toronto, you can get *anything*, not just food either. But the secondary places like Edmonton, Regina, etc. are much more limited. Winnipeg, where IR is, is somewhere in between. It's a very old and established town but not a huge commercial market and often expensive to ship to. Still they get pretty much everything. Once you get down to the small town level, things are *way* more limited. For example year round the fruit section would be apple/orange/banana sort of thing. They eat a *lot* of canned food in small town Canada.

Calgary, where I live, is not at all indicative of the rest of Canada. It's pretty well the #1 city in Canada right now in many categories. Too new and small to have the problems of a Vancouver or Toronto, but with a huge economy. We have that rare combo of the cleanest air on earth and a big economic oil boom. It can't last. The housing market here has been Canada's hottest for many years, it's been booming for a couple decades without any end in sight. It's 100% because all the oil companies are here. It can't be sustained and the future is going to be bleak at some point, but for now it's shangri-la. :yes

For perspective, get this. The guy who rents my basement is a sax player. For over a decade in Edmonton (a mere 3 hours form here) he was basically starving right through, barely scraping out an existence. It was grueling. His family is from there so it didn't occur to him to split. Since we moved here a few years ago, he has had barely a week off. He plays in a Motown band and they are in demand all the time, they work every single week. Sometimes several gigs per week. Last week they did 4 separate gigs, all for good pay. So basically the difference is profound. Calgary is the only place left in Canada where a weekend band can make a decent full time living as far as I know. It's like that across the board here. There's tons of jobs in practically every sector and they pay about 20-30% more than the same jobs in small towns. At the same time it's not cheap to live here, it's getting incredibly expensive in fact. :yes

[bnkrazy]

Along the lines of cough syrup...I find that a concoction of vinegar and honey (mix to taste, about half and half) does wonders for sore throats and coughing.

Yummy too. :yes

I agree with limited non-natural medicinal intake...The only thing I ever use is an occasional decongestant if really necessary.

[Corey]

That's a good policy, occasional use has virtually no ill effects and you get maximum benefit since your system is not tolerant. That's pretty well how I treat red wine. :D

[Eagle]

hey if the red wine tastes a bit 'vinegary' - add some of chris's honey,
down the throat she goes.. :)

I hear you on the 'fresh-vs-quality' aspect Corey..there was a 'short shown
locally regarding research done from the history of a vegitable or fruit..from
ground to the, in most cases, supermarket shelves.
Some supermarkets were found to be putting out product-so called fresh.

The real history of the product was traced to be up to 12 months old,
that's been going on around the world for quite a while now.

Strawberries is a good example (snap frozen) put on the market shelf,
in two days at home..mouldy overripe. Take it back to seller...winge winge.

(we only sell fresh produce here) ..reply "no longer to me you don't"

[Corey]

Absolutely. I saw a similar show where they were doing the same thing. :yes

[gbrown]

About the taking of bicarb of soda...

In many cases that's not the best thing. What going on in your stomach is a feedback system where you tummy says "I want to have an acidity of X". Well, it's "X" is set to high and you have the dreaded Acid Stomach. You down some bicarb (or Tums, or whatever base) and you pull down the acidity. Your stomach then says "Whoooooaaaa.... wazzat??? I've gone basic.... better crank up the ol' acid machine. Bingo, more HCl pours into your stomach. You take more of whatever, your stomarch counters. It's a no-win situation.

I've got Acid Reflex Syndrome. I've had it since I was a teenager, the typical onset age. I always would complain about "Acid Throat" and NOTHING would work (since I would get stuck in the above feedback loop.). Then in the late 70's I lucked out and got an experimental drug. I still remember the labelling on the pill: SKF T13. Smith-Kline (F)armecuiticals TAGAMET. Oooo.. I had the first ever decent night's sleep. The Tagamet (tm) nailed the feedback loop. At first it was hideously expensive. Thank heavens for HMOs. Over the last 25 years newer drugs have come out. I rely on a maintenance dose of Prilosec now.

With chemical neutrilizers such as CaCO3 you are just working on symptoms. With stuff like Prilosec you are actually getting at the root cause. I don't like taking drugs, and try to wean myself off of them when I can. Sometimes, though, when your body just isn't wired quite correctly (and hyperacidity is something that runs in my family...my mom essentially died from it {but that's another story}), taking meds evens things out out.

Remember... your milage may very, side effects include, well...you know the drill.

GcB

[eric_darling]

Something, somewhere, that you are totally ignorant about, will someday kill you. That's just the way it goes. All you can do is try to manage life's little intracacies the best you can, and try to promote your own health as much as is sensible. Worry is time spent away from living.

[rhosk]

Worry is time spent away from living.Well put.



I'll give you 2 letters....PH.

If it doesn't ring a bell, do some research on it :) ..it's an eye opener.

[Corey]

In many cases that's not the best thing. What going on in your stomach is a feedback system where you tummy says "I want to have an acidity of X". Well, it's "X" is set to high and you have the dreaded Acid Stomach. You down some bicarb (or Tums, or whatever base) and you pull down the acidity. Your stomach then says "Whoooooaaaa.... wazzat??? I've gone basic.... better crank up the ol' acid machine. Bingo, more HCl pours into your stomach. You take more of whatever, your stomarch counters. It's a no-win situation.
That's only if you have a health problem. A normal stomach has a mechanism to regulate acid levels. :yes

Something, somewhere, that you are totally ignorant about, will someday kill you.
Actually ignorance can be mitigated substantially and the vast majority of people expire from very predictable reasons. For me the path is to get educated on the relevant issues, do my best to optimize my lifestyle on every single point going forward, and work hard to stave off the ill effects of time as best I can. Worrying is an important part of a healthy existence, it's built so deeply into our brains for a constructive reason. Otherwise nature would never have made it such a prominent function in 100% of humans. The key is just to focus it on things you can actually affect. :yes


I'll give you 2 letters....PH.
Again, it's a question of regulation. A healthy body will be fine under healthy circumstances. It's probably not a great idea to artificially adjust body PH. Body PH is easily one of the most mis-written about topics out there. :yes

[eric_darling]

Actually ignorance can be mitigated substantially and the vast majority of people expire from very predictable reasons. For me the path is to get educated on the relevant issues, do my best to optimize my lifestyle on every single point going forward, and work hard to stave off the ill effects of time as best I can. Worrying is an important part of a healthy existence, it's built so deeply into our brains for a constructive reason. Otherwise nature would never have made it such a prominent function in 100% of humans. The key is just to focus it on things you can actually affect.
Actually, I meant "ignorance" in the sense that you have no idea what will, indeed, be the end of you. I agree you can mitigate general ignorance by study. That's true.

I still think worry is the least useful of all human emotions. Worry begets worry. You know what I mean, because you know far too many people who live like that. If you can quickly convert worry into confident right action, then it serves a purpose as a radar tower. But beyond that, totally worthless. Still, I wouldn't even call that "worry" per se, as worry generally implies some sort of persistence.

Most people I know dwell far too long in unchecked worry (anything more than instant recognition of the onset of worry is too much). Life's too short to worry.

[Intrigued]

I checked, it was Vinegar to (see disclaimer in my first post), it's meant to get the acid innate to the stomach back in action doing its thing, properly like.

[Corey]

I think nature makes us worry for constructive reasons. Seems like a lot of the problems people have regulating it these days are largely environmental. TV does an absolutely fantastic job of nurturing anxiety. Inactivity, overeating, etc. It adds up. :yes

Vinegar as a heartburn cure is an old wive's tale I think, I can't find a credible source putting forth the vinegar claim, if you have a link to a credible source on that please share it and I'll read it thoroughly. Barring that I would say "helen" makes the points well here:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forum/forum_comments/3268/P20/

[rhosk]

That's only if you have a health problem. A normal stomach has a mechanism to regulate acid levels. :yes


Actually ignorance can be mitigated substantially and the vast majority of people expire from very predictable reasons. For me the path is to get educated on the relevant issues, do my best to optimize my lifestyle on every single point going forward, and work hard to stave off the ill effects of time as best I can. Worrying is an important part of a healthy existence, it's built so deeply into our brains for a constructive reason. Otherwise nature would never have made it such a prominent function in 100% of humans. The key is just to focus it on things you can actually affect. :yes



Again, it's a question of regulation. A healthy body will be fine under healthy circumstances. It's probably not a great idea to artificially adjust body PH. Body PH is easily one of the most mis-written about topics out there. :yes
OK, that post exploded, LOL - it was a one liner a few hours ago.

Alrighty Dr. Corey, depends on what you mean by modifying PH (not talking blood ph here). This could be long and drawn out, but I will tell you that I successfully followed some of that mis-written guidance out there and it has helped me tremendously over the past year or so, including heartburn/indigestion problems. Lost 30 pounds, cured a gout episode (all of this without drugs), joint pains disappeared, snoring/sleep apnea gone, lowered my blood pressure to normal within a month or so (this was mid last year), quit smoking (nothing to do with the ph thing I don't think) and - ah, there's more, but I will leave it at that. Just a better sense of well-being :) not boasting about it, just putting it out there that reversing an unhealthy attitude/body is definitely doable. Yes, if you're healthy, leave well enough alone, but if you're not and you happen to know it, you can do something about it. And I followed a ph modification (not artificially, with foods) and have never felt better. Just throwin' it out there :)

[[and yes, you could say that - "hey, you lost that weight, of course....."I weighed 190 pounds (6'1") for 40 years and haven't felt this good :D ]]

[Corey]

Ron, only this sentence was in regard to your PH post, "Again, it's a question of regulation. A healthy body will be fine under healthy circumstances. It's probably not a great idea to artificially adjust body PH. Body PH is easily one of the most mis-written about topics out there."

I stand by that. Obviously I'm no doctor or even close, but I don't see why that would preclude me from sharing my thoughts. PH myths are abound on the net and in informercials. Super glad to hear you're feeling better though Ron, that's great. I love hearing stories like that. :yes

You seem to credit everything to one source, i.e. cause and effect. Seems possible that you lost 30 pounds (and gout) by changing your diet, and in turn losing 30 pounds is possibly what helped your joint pain, etc. That's just my opinion. As I said, for a healthy person in a healthy environment, your body automatically regulates PH within your various internal systems. If you aren't/weren't healthy then that's a whole other thing. One thing I am sure of is that there's no free lunch at the end of the day, if you didn't make those other changes in your lifestyle your recent gains would not be possible/sustainable by PH adjustment alone. The fulcrum is the long term lifestyle changes IMO, not the PH adjustment, although it may very well have been one key component contributing to your healing. :yes

Once you are healthy, eating properly, and living well, it's best to leave your PH alone and just let your body do its job IMO. A healthy body in a healthy environment will take care of regulating all that stuff with superb efficiency. :yes

Bottom line, there's no single path for everyone to get on track. Once you are on track though, things become surprisingly similar for most folks. Yoga is a free, time proven system which works great for almost everyone once they are on track. Compared with the normal population very few yoga practicioners have health issues, and that seems to apply equally to men and women of all ages and backgrounds. Anyhow I'll leave this discussion at that for my part, those are my opinions on that topic and not meant to denigrate anyone else's opinions. Bottom line for me is that I support whatever works for you in terms of getting back on track, and I'm thrilled to hear what a great year it was for you. To many more. :yes