Stuck at Home with Pneumonia
17 years ago
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17 years agoRelated Discussions
Pneumonia Home Remedies
Comments (3)I suppose if one were in an isolated area with no access to modern medicine it might be necessary to fall back on home remedies for pneumonia, but that is probably what killed so many so soon in the days before modern medicine. Some illnesses are so severe, and move so rapidly, that traditional treatments do not have the strength to work. I have always considered pneumonia to be one of those. Essentially, the way I picture it, you have a concentrated ball of microorganisms rapidly doubling in quantity, and something has to be done to stop that fairly quickly before it kills you. Even today and hospitalized, many elderly still die of it. Traditional herbal treatments often cannot be safely taken in massive doses because they have not been treated by modern processes to remove any non-therapeutic constituents that could be harmful. There probably are remedies that could be taken to help ward off pneumonia, before a lung infection actually developed to the point it could be called that, but I don't know what they would be. I know the buds of forsythia have some antibiotic quality, but the Chinese grow a special strain in which that characteristic is stronger. There would be no guarantee, in either case, though, that the antibiotic quality of the forsythia buds would kill the harmful bacteria, rather than simply kill off more beneficial ones that might help to keep more lethal bacteria strains at bay. Only a practitioner in the area where the infection was occurring who had practiced on others with the same condition would tend to have this knowledge. Herbal treatment was probably by trial and error in the early days, and later patients probably benefited more than earlier ones during any particular epidemic. My theory is that most epidemics begin in more crowded and less affluent conditions, which would enable the ambitious practitioner to exercise his or her best remedies on the more affluent. Since herbs take more space to grow and store than today's pills, and transportation was also more limited, the average herbalist was probably rather limited in the number of remedies actually on hand. There were probably a few standards (like comfrey, because it grows so large and well in a variety of circumstances) which would be tried for almost every malady, since there was such a good supply of it, and other herbal remedies, which might acutually have been more effective, held in reserve for the very worst cases or the wealthiest clients. Herbs from warmer, or cooler, or dryer, or more humid climates than the practicing herbalist's would have been in short supply in the early days. An herbalist that relocated to an area with a different climate, for any reason, would have initially been able to bring a supply of his or her own remedies along, but would soon have needed to resupply with remedies that could grow in the new area, or which were obtainable through reliable trade with other areas. Even for conditions which the herbalist knew how to treat effectively, many probably died because of insufficient supplies of herbs or lack of anything to pay for treatment. All of that, again, would have resulted in those who had the knowledge and resources to do so, growing or gathering their own herbs where possible. It is possible that monks and nuns might have shared clones of valuable plants with parish priests, who then could pass offsets on to parishioners, but I don't know if anyone has documentation of that. Possibly, on pilgrimages, people also were on the lookout for curative plants that could be brought home....See MorePneumonia Is Not For Gardeners!
Comments (7)Ouch! I bet you're typing all of this from the comfort of your BED, right, Pat? LOL Don't worry, I won't tell on you. :) I know what you mean about letting the plants alone for a bit. I'm always surprised, when I come home after a weekend away, that the plants have managed without me (and even seemed to thrive a little more, as if to say, "Leave us be! We're fine without you, lady!"). I worry about them as I would a teenager left alone. Although trust is good, mothering must be better! :D Take care of yourself, Pat! Hope you feel better soon! Brenda...See MoreHad my flu and pneumonia vaccines today.
Comments (35)Very interesting, alisande. Thanks. Why didn't you have the injection done by the pharmacist? Similarly but in a different sense, I remember some years ago that my own primary care doc at the time told me that his practice didn't have the refrigeration equipment to keep one particular vaccine (I forget which) at the low temp it needed and suggested I get it at a pharmacy or a larger group practice. He's since retired and my new doc is part of a larger medical school faculty practice. I haven't had a similar experience though I do go to a large pharmacy location for annual inoculations needed off cycle from primary care doctor visits....See MorePneumonia! Getting older stinks.
Comments (36)I get the shots Terezosa. Two years in a row after getting the shots I still got the flu. I still will get the shots every year, but in my case they did no good. In fact, weeks after I got my flu shot last year I got the flu and then a month later got it again. I was sick for WEEKS and this year, three months after getting my flu shot, I am sick again, and am on week two of exhaustion. I have many friends in the same boat. This is not a post against getting a flu vaccination, only a post that in my particular case, I have been sick every winter for weeks on end despite having gotten a flu shot. And my husband, who also got vaccinated, also has the flu, most likely he got it from me. Obviously we are getting strains not covered by the vaccine. It is no magic bullet and since I get sick every year, I think my immune system must be weakening with old age, since I rarely got sick before turning 45. In fact I think I went a whole decade without a cold or flu, then it was every time I was on a plane for more than two hours, so about every 5 years since I would visit friends and family in Europe about that often. Then it started to be an every year thing but I broke the cycle by moving to a new state. Now after 5 years here, I am back to my every year sick for weeks trap....See More
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