If it's not clear by now, I'm not a doctor. But I am sick and I am trying to get better faster. I haven't been this under-the-weather in years. I can usually kick a cold at the first sniffle. I have a master plan and a well stocked Jeffery Campbell shoebox containing all my proven medicinal remedies. I have spent many recent years uninsured, which means... unless you're dying fix it yourself!

What's in my trusty sick-kicker-kit?
1. Dr. Shen's Cold Stop: I picked this up a couple years ago when I felt like I was coming down with something. Who the H knows what it is, but you basically take 5 pills at the first sign of cold or flu. Take another 5 in 4 hours and the last 5 the next morning. You can find it at your hippie grocery store.

2. Gypsy Cold Care: While you're at said hippie grocery store get your mits on some Traditional Medicine tea: Gypsy Cold Care and Breath Easy are my favorites for cold kicking!

3. Echinanea: I dragged my sick-recently-insured arse down to the clinic yesterday to rule out strep. No strep, but the doctor did give me a print out containing all the remedies I already had locked and loaded PLUS one I didn't have. While it might not be riding the high of the 90's trendy Echinacea craze, the doc recommended Echinacea Purpurea (not angustifolia).

4. Cold Ease (or ANY zinc lozenge): Start sucking these down, one every 2-3 hours.

5. Water: water never tastes good when I need to drink it, so I add Nuun. Or drink hot with lemon and honey. I also count popsicles as hydration.

6. Rest: old movies are best watched while sick. I finally watched The 7 Year Itch yesterday. Lemme tell ya 1950s humor is ... different.

7. If you are a true holistic yuppy, you own a juicer. Get it out. Juice some carrot, apple, ginger root, lemon and then add cayenne pepper and honey. Drink. Then hopefully you're sick enough that your partner/roommate will clean out the juicer for you.

8. I haven't tried it yet, but I came across this Apple Cider Vinegar brew that sounds nasty, so it must be healing. I'll be trying it as soon as my cute grocery boy husband comes home. 
  
Being sick is the pits. Like a rest that is neither wanted NOR enjoyable. Achy, feverish and hacking up what used to be a perfectly good lung isn't my idea of 'restful'. Feeling weaker and weaker, while watching the running week's goals wash down the drain. Whump, Whump...

What are your sick-kicker tricks?? I'll take anything!