Swine Flu Tips

A friend forwarded on this email to me and these are all very doable, no cost, precautions you can take to avoid swine flu.  Just received a call from my mother in law this morning - one of my nieces just had a baby yesterday and she has been diagnosed with swine flu - she is in isolation in the hospital.  It seems to be hitting pregnant women particularly hard.

Here are some great tips and precautions we can all take.

These tips come from an MD

He also mentioned the benefits of taking Vitamin D, as did Dr. Oz of Oprah fame
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Boosting the immune system with Vitamin D3 adults  no more than 2000 iu a day and  children 1000 iu daily, is very helpful.

1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).



2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or slap).

3. Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3 above, clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.


5. Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C. If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6. Drink as much of warm liquids as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.