Take zinc and vitamin C supplements: They help with strengthening your immune system and make you feel better soon.
Take probiotics: It’s a natural bacterium that supplements your microbiome and stimulates your immune response. You can consume them in the form of cultured or fermented foods like yogurt, kombucha and pickles.
Gargle with salt water: This helps to soothe a sore throat by pulling water from surrounding tissues to decrease inflammation, wash out mucous and bring moisture.
Slurp into a bowl of soup: Broth contains electrolytes that balances your body. The steam from heated soup helps to soothe your dry nose and throat. Surround yourself with essential oils: Oils made with tea tree leaves, lemon and eucalyptus can help unblock nasal passages.
Use tea to fight it: Green tea, ginseng tea and hibiscus tea are known to have effects against influenza. Honey is an effective cough reliever, so maybe you could use that to sweeten the tea.
Time to see the doctor
If you are an adult with flu symptoms, speak to a doctor, if the fever lasts longer than 3 days or the cough lasts longer than 2 weeks. Anyone having trouble breathing should get treatment right away! Aside from that, adults shouldn’t overlook chest pain and children be taken to the emergency room if they are having problems passing urine, fever higher than 104 degrees or if they are overly sleepy.
If you are experiencing any of the symptoms or would like more information on how to prevent or treat the flu, speak to a GP from the safety and comfort of your home at any time via oDoc. Stay safe!
Sources
- Healthy Habits to Help Protect Against Flu, CDC (2022)
- Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health (2022)