Monday, November 1, 2010

Cold and Flu Season

It's cold and flu season.  We've had our first cold of the season already.  If you are like my husband, you just use your mind to overcome the bad germs in your body and have no need of any of the fancy remedies or preventive medicines so many folks out there swear by.  So, as usual, I'll give you my cold-and-flu season in LIST form, since I hardly have much more of an attention span than, well, looking at a list.  Without further ado....

Ways to prevent cold and flu this season:
  1. Use your mind to overcome it (wait, that doesn't work for me)
  2. Get crazy about hand washing.  I mean, crazy, crazy, CRAZY.  I ruined my oldest son so much so that he won't do anything before he makes a beeline for the bathroom every time we get home from being out.  But please do it right.  Don't use antibacterial soap, but do use warm water and actually make it count.  scrub!  all over!
  3. Use disposable hand towels (gasp) or assign a "personal" hand towel for each member of the family.
  4. Don't touch your eyes or your mouth.  Ever.
  5. Irrigate your  nose twice daily with a bottled saline solution or a neti pot.  Get those germs out. 
  6. Gargle twice daily with salt water or Listerine.  Gotta kill those germs!
  7. Drink lots of hot water or tea.  The heat kills the germs and washes the really strong ones down into your tummy where your stomach acid finishes the job if necessary.
I started the "personal" hand towel policy last fall when we had H1N1 at our house, and I got bloody, dry, cracked hands from all the hand washing.  However, I was the only one of the five of us here that didn't get hit so maybe I was doing something right.  I just instituted #5, 6, and 7 and I'm even thinking about buying the kiddie versions of saline spray for each of my littles.  We'll see.

Do you have a cold and flu evasion technique that you swear by?  I'd love to broaden my horizons.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hand washing, check.
Hands away from the face, check.
No antibacterial soaps, check.

but nasal irrigations????? No way.

Rosemary

KD said...

Rosemary, you crack me up! The neti pot thing DEFINITELY freaks me out, which is why I bought some saline nasal spray and just use that every day. It's really not bad.

But the neti pot? That sounds like a nightmare to me (although there are lots of people who swear by them, of course.....).

MrsMonicaLB said...

My husband seems to never get sick like I do!WHY???you think its because he works out everyday?maybe I should workout like he does maybe I would be healthier too,I've already had 2 colds/flu since May,(I cant ever tell the difference) and passed on getting my flu shot this year but...my nephew works in the E.R. and was constantly battling something so now he takes EmergenC daily and he swears by it,so I am taking it now and hopefully it helps,I'll let you know.

mrs. fuzz said...

uh. . . I think you pretty much have it covered!!!

But hey, if you didn't get sick last year, don't stop! I think I might just pick up a few of these OCD. . I mean, habits.

Handcuffed Heart said...

Last year the only thing I was doing was handwashing. I really want all my bases covered this year.

And what's OCD about any of these?!?!

By the way, I know I should add "get plenty of sleep" to the list but that ain't happenin'.