Information to Help with the Coronavirus and even the Common Cold

The best Vitamin D pill!

I've been checking out information for fighting the coronavirus in a natural way. I don't claim any particular medical expertise, but most of the sources I've been reading are doctors.

Of course your own medical professional is the best source of advice for your particular situation. (Or at least he or she may be. As my somewhat cynical dad used to say, "They call it the practice of medicine because they're practicing on you!")

I'm sure many people are already taking Vitamin D and Vitamin C as immune  boosters. That's an absolute given. In fact, as this article points out, the quarantines may backfire if people don't get out in the sunshine. Consider the folks on the cruise ships restricted to inside cabins for weeks! No wonder so many got sick!

Three common sense rules: wash your hands frequently (21 seconds, the length of a Hail Mary), stay well hydrated, and get plenty of sleep. A few others? Eat nourishing food and cut out the junk, stop smoking, and limit alcohol. Those are all-around good suggestions for supporting your immune system and staying healthy all the time. (One suggestion in the article that I personally will not follow is getting a flu shot.)

My husband and I drink an anti-inflammatory tea every evening made with decaf green tea, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, honey to taste and big sprinkle of cinnamon. I like vinegar so I find the taste pleasant, especially with the cinnamon.

There are other strategies for addressing the virus.

If the video below is accurate, doing the heat treatment could be a good preventive and perhaps a prescription for minimizing the impact if you actually get the virus. I'm going to give it a try myself by doing the hair dryer heat treatment once a day before I go to bed (since I don't have access to a sauna). And if I start to feel sick I'll do it more often. I already treat colds and chest congestions with hot toddies and a heating pad on my chest. This past winter I headed off two chest colds with that strategy. Symptoms disappeared within in a few days instead of my ending up with a full blown extended illness which I've had in the past. I also raised the heat on my C-pap machine last night and actually slept better than normal.



Another interesting discovery is the impact of a common malarial drug on the coronavirus: An effective treatment for the coronavirus. If I get the virus, I'll ask my doctor about chloroquine since it's a prescription-only drug.

My husband and I are in the higher risk group because of our age, but also some other factors. Men have more receptors for the virus and are extra vulnerable if they take drugs for high blood pressure as my husband does. On the plus side he's blood type O which appears to be more resistant to the virus. People with blood type A appear to be more susceptible and that's my blood type. Obviously there's nothing you can do about your blood type, but knowing your risks can impact your decision about how much social distancing you want to practice.

Actually, our routine involves relatively minimal exposure to large groups. We don't fly, rarely go to the movies or the mall or other places with large numbers of people. Those who must work don't have the luxury in many cases of social distancing. I stopped at CVS this morning which was nearly empty (not unusual in normal times) and the clerk mentioned that she couldn't take time off work to take her daughter to her grandfather's winter home in Florida. Many will continue working and others will be badly hurt financially by the shut down. I think of the waitresses at the two diners we go to for breakfast on Tuesday and Thursday with friends. I'm sure they heavily depend on tips. I hope President Trump's assistance package will tide them over. When the diners open again we'll be leaving more generous tips than usual. It's a way to do charity while respecting the independence of workers. Fr. John Hardon used to recommend that.

The best advice is prayer to stop the plague, prayer and penance. How slow we are to respond to Mary's Fatima message. Is chastisement really a surprise?

I have to say that a world where tens of millions of babies are murdered in the womb every year in abortion facilities, not to mention the even greater number killed by so-called contraceptive drugs that are actually abortifacient (and not counted), that we entirely deserve this chastisement. Even those of us who call ourselves pro-life do little enough to stop the mass slaughter and protect God's precious least ones. Call for God's mercy through the intercession of Mary. As the saying goes, work as if all depends on you; pray as if all depends on God. And especially pray for our priests and for health care workers who are on the front lines in this battle.