Is It a Cold? Is It the Flu?

You’re coughing, sneezing, tired, and achy. You assume you have a cold and treat yourself with natural medicine. But things don’t improve and symptoms generally feel different than a typical cold or flu.

You have a terrible headache that feels worse in the morning, with pain in your forehead over the eyebrows that is aggravated when touched. Your upper jaw and teeth ache, and your cheeks are tender to touch. Your eyelids and the corner of your eyes are swollen and sore and you’ve lost your sense of smell.

To top it off, your friends tell you that you sound like Ernie from Sesame Street and your neck pain can be so bad that when your cough becomes spastic at night, you start to pace the neighbourhood looking for a guillotine. But hold on–help IS available.

Before you jump to any conclusions that natural medicine and homeopathy are not doing the trick, consider that you might be experiencing sinusitis and not just a common cold. In sinusitis, the sinus passages are inflamed. If your doctor told you that what you have is a virus, she may have been right. If she said it is bacterial, she also may have been right. Perhaps the diagnosis was fungal? Or maybe your doctor simply blamed it on your allergies. All of these are a possibility. Any way you look at it, you have sinusitis.

Sinuses are hollow air spaces located within the skull and bones surrounding the nose. Each sinus has an opening into the nose for the free exchange of air and mucus, and each is joined with the nasal passages by a continuous mucous membrane lining. Anything that causes a swelling in the nose–an infection, an allergic reaction, or another type of immune reaction–also can affect the sinuses. Even air trapped within a blocked sinus, along with pus or other secretions, may cause pressure on the sinus wall. The result is the intense pain of a sinus attack.

Depending on the type of sinusitis you are experiencing, homeopathy offers solutions that are just right for each specific symptom.

Health experts estimate that over 40 million North Americans suffer with sinus congestion leading to sinusitis. What speaks volumes to those numbers is the fact that we spend over $6 billion annually in conventional and natural medicine to treat sinusitis.

Homeopathic Help

• Mercurius solubilis or Hydrastis canadensis: For symptoms of sinusitis as described in the second paragraph, take 6C to 12C three times daily until symptoms disappear.
• Kali bichromium: For gluey, ropey discharge, take 6C to 12C three times daily until
  symptoms disappear.
• Mezereum: For burning pains in the nasal or facial bones or in case of mucus discharge streaked with blood, take 30C three times daily until symptoms disappear.
• Lachesis mutus: If symptoms worsen or if discharge stops or decreases, take 30C
  once daily.
• Pyrogenium: If you experience a feverish reaction yet you feel significantly better when heat is applied locally, take 1M once, and when symptoms improve, repeat dose once daily until symptoms are gone.