Doctors advise against using cough syrups

[Corey]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...ub=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.

--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.

[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!

[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.

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

[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

[Corey]

Ginger is great.

[Eagle]

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

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...

[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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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.