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Cause and effect - dealing with the causes | |
Over use: Like any part of the body, if you suddenly increase in the amount you use it, it may get sore or break down. Almost everyone has a periodic episode of over-use of their voices at some time. Normally, you would experience soreness and it would clear up in a few days. These episodes are unavoidable and are normal in the life’s big picture. The problem is when you are stuck in a profession or practice where this over-use (abuse) cannot be stopped. What one can do in this case is to limit voice use as much as possible, drink plenty of water, use herbal cough drops and get as much sleep as possible (sleeping is when you heal). In the next chapter, I’ll give you the whole healing routine which helps tremendously with this type of irritation. Allergies: Allergies are very prevalent these days with all the stuff that’s in the air. I also feel that the general toxin load that our immune systems have to deal with sometimes makes it over-active and contributes to allergies. You can moderate the intake of some irritants and toxins and with others you have no choice. You can decide to not eat food processed with chemicals that increase your body’s workload (when it tries to clean this stuff out of your body), but you have little choice in breathing air that is fouled with poisons. I won’t belabor this point because you already know this. Avoid consciously taking in poisons and contaminants. Walk away from foul odors and dust. Drink pure water. The way that air-borne allergens irritate your throat is that your sinuses fill up with pollens and other particulates, and the body responds with mucus production. This mix then drains down into your throat. Even though the mucus is wet, it actually is very absorbent and pulls moisture out of your throat by osmosis. Chronic sinus drainage causes chronic throat irritation. It’s that simple. Every notice that dogs drool? This is actually normal and beneficial, because their sinuses are draining out onto the ground. We humans walk upright, and ours drain down our throats. A design worth rethinking! It’s the same reason many people have back trouble. There would be only half the weight on our spines (and knees), and we would drain our sinuses out of our noses if we walked on all-fours! Being as we are not going to do that (not often anyway), we must try to limit mucus from going down out throats. We must also try to keep allergies down. If you have them, you already know how to do that. Many medications used for allergies have psuedoephinepheren and other stimulants which actually lower your throat hydration and may not help your throat irritation even though they cut down on mucus. I’ll give you a natural way to lower allergies and keep your throat hydrated…and it’s free! Infection: All of us have had upper-respiratory infections at one time or another (most people). Along with them comes drainage and throat irritation. What can also happen is that the throat itself gets infected and that is serious business. People generally call an infected throat “Strep Throat”, but this is a popular term which is over-used and most times inaccurate. If you have an irritated throat, and are running a fever, call the doctor immediately. Do not delay because bacteria and viruses are getting evolved to a point that we are loosing the ability to fight many of them. Also, because viruses have over-taken bacteria in the last century, when people go to the doctor with a virus infection, they expect to be given anti-biotics. Although they are of no use against viruses, doctors many times feel pressured to prescribe them- and do. Unless your doctor takes a throat culture (which they should do in this instance), and it proves to be an actual bacterial infection, don’t take anti-biotics as a matter of course. Over-use of these drugs is causing bacteria to become resistant to them, and we are beginning to loose the race against bacteria. There are also new anti-viral drugs that show promise. Infection is something a doctor must help you with. This site is training you to take good general care of your throat for a lifetime of use. Cysts, Nodes and Cancer: I put these three things together because we are not going to address treating these things. We will talk about them. Cysts and nodes are fairly common occurrences in the throat. They are the result of genetics and environment. Many times, professional singers get vocal chord nodes which need to be removed by surgery. These small growths occur on the vocal chords and affect the quality of the voice. They are visible with simple inspection by an ENT. If your voice quality changes un-expectedly, see an ENT promptly. Cysts are physically different by have a similar effect. Cysts are more painful generally and can last for years. If you have any profound symptoms –anything stronger than a simple irritation due to overuse, dryness or allergies, please see a professional immediately. Early detection is paramount in treating serious throat problems. If you smoke -STOP. Chemicals, dust etc.: In many work environments, it is impossible to avoid breathing chemical irritants and dust. By chemical irritants I mean primarily organic solvents, pesticides, smoke and engine fumes. OSHA standards in the USA are significantly more lax than standards for worker exposure in Europe. Most people also will have signed wavers in their work contracts so that “exposure to certain environmental hazards” is part of their job description. It certainly was for me. If you smell chemicals, they are strong enough to injure you. It’s your body’s own defense system telling you to get away from it. Long-term exposure to levels lower than you can smell can also injure you. Many organic solvents (like methanol) have no odor. Do what you can to lower the amount of contamination in your immediate work area. Cover the ventilator with cardboard and tape and open a window if building ventilation is blowing contaminants into your area.. Run an air cleaner. Use a negative ion generator. The building may be a toxic wreck, but your immediate workspace can be made much cleaner. Remember, your lungs are filtering the air and very effectively transferring air-borne chemicals into your blood stream. All of this stuff also has to pass your throat on it’s way in. Forget what your co-workers think. Protect yourself by whatever means available. If you must work in a contaminated workspace, take breaks outside often, keep a positive attitude and look for a new job! Most organic solvents are short-term irritators and long-term mutogens. As your throat’s health is linked to your immune system’s health, you want to keep the toxin load on your system to the minimum. The throat is fragile already, protect it. Dust is a short-term irritant and long-term health hazard to your lungs. I am talking about your workspace because it is often contaminated, but your home air quality is also very important- as you will spend most of your time there. Store chemicals in the shed –especially pesticides, gas cans and paints. (not in an attached garage) Do not store car batteries in the house. Organic solvents are very volatile (they evaporate and penetrate walls). Paint a board with spray paint in the garage –shut the door to it –and your whole house will smell like toluene in 5 minutes. Keep the garage floor clean of oil too. Use an orange-oil based cleaner. Another thing to avoid is cement dust. It has ground up silica and lye which are strong throat/lung irritants. Always use a dust mask when working with construction materials. Be especially careful with treated lumber. Cutting it creates lots of fine particles of cellulose soaked in toxins. Use a filter mask! Bleach is also highly irritating to the throat. Use a water filter to take it out of your drinking water. If you can’t, just let the water breathe in the glass for a few hours. The bleach will leave the water. The old belief that you shouldn’t drink ice-cold liquids holds true for throat sufferers. Americans drink iced drinks even in the winter. Try to move towards drinking liquids at more neutral temps. It’s also a good check of your water’s quality. If you can drink it room temperature and it tastes good, it probably is good. For your air-conditioner/heater system, high-grade disposable filters are much more effective than using washable filters. Check the filtering grade number (MERV) on washable filters, they are lower than better disposable filters. Don’t save money, save your health. A grade 7 or better filter is best. Change them at the suggested intervals. Side Note: Many people worry about RF (radio wave) and microwave energy. Realize that the energy required to alter cell functioning by radio energy is very high. RF energy decreases at a geometric rate as you get away from the source (move twice as far and the level is 4 times less). Amazingly, big microwave antennas on radio towers typically use 1-30 watts and are far from your body. Over 300 feet from even the largest legal transmitting device in the USA is a safe distance. More important to know is that chemical contaminants are much more powerful in changing cells functioning. The energy in the bonding of two atoms which want to cleave to each other is profound. Cells are healthy when they can transport things in and out of their cell walls – taking in what they need and getting rid of waste. When you alter this process, the cell can easily die (cyanide). Unless you are living directly under high-tension lines or right next to a 50,000 watt FM transmitter tower, your far greater concern - is chemical contamination. Smoking: What can I say about this?! There isn’t a shred of doubt that smoking anything causes throat irritation and ultimately may cause cancer regardless of what the “scientists” at the tobacco companies say. If you smoke, quit. If you won't stop, just go back to surfing Ebay now - because I can’t help you. Second-hand smoke is serious business and throat sufferers cannot afford to be exposed to it. Occasionally, you may have to breathe second-hand smoke for a short duration. You can survive this, but avoid it- and go outside to get fresh air periodically. Be confidently aggressive about telling smokers to follow the established laws about smoking indoors. Hydration and the lack thereof: Most people are chronically under-hydrated. Your throat needs to be wet to function. Your sinuses purpose is to humidify and warm the air hitting your throat. If you are thirsty, you are already de-hydrated. As a throat patient, you need to have a water bottle with GOOD water in it at all times. Sip Sip Sip..all day. Make it a habit. Different daily amounts are often suggested. It is more important to be sipping all day than trying to quaff a certain amount. Just keep sipping! If you get thirsty anyhow, up your sipping. What is good water? Amazingly, your body is designed to tell you. Buy the top four bottled waters available to you – and make some filtered water using your favorite technique. Have an assistant label them and keep track of them. Drink them at room temperature. Do your blind taste test and I can guarantee you that you will prefer one of the waters over the others. Drink that one. I prefer water from Hot Springs, Arkansas. It is 4000 year old rainwater and I have not found a better quality water anywhere. It is bottled by several companies and available almost everywhere. Check the back of the bottle to see where the water actually comes from (some which carry the name, are actually not from there). Whole Foods house brand bottled water ("365") is from Hot Springs. (Reverse-Osmosis filtered water is about 50 parts per million in dissolved solids. Hot Springs water is 7PPM.) During the winter months, home heating can dry out the air in the house. You might also just live in a dry climate. Remember also that humidity readings are relative – meaning that 40% at 45F is much less humid than 40% at 85F (the hotter it is, the more water the air can carry). Luckily, throughout the day you can hydrate your throat simply by sipping water. The problem is at night. There is a simple trick I use to fix this. Take your shower/bath towel and hang it to dry next to the bed. I use a microphone stand (found cheaply at your local music store) and place it right at the side of my pillow. It needs to be within 2 feet of your head. You can spritz it with a little more water for best results. You can also place it over the head-board if you place a protective cover under it (this position works best!). This makes a tremendous difference. Make this a habit in dry weather months. People also use tea-pots and simmer them all night on a wood stove or heater. If you use a humidifier, ultrasonic ones vaporize ALL the water including the contaminants. Heat element ones distill the water into the air. Acid Reflux Disease: Acid Reflux Disease (or simply “Reflux”) has come under the spotlight in recent years primarily because drug manufacturers have developed treatments for it and have spend millions in advertising. There are three sphincters in the body and one of them is at the top of your stomach. It’s purpose is to keep stomach contents out of the esophagus. When we over-eat (especially chronically), that “lid” on our stomach can fail and food mixed with stomach acid can land up in your esophagus and throat. By itself, this can cause throat problems. If you already have throat irritation, this can compound your irritation. If you reflux stomach acid onto a sore throat during sleep, you will wake up faster than if you got an electric shock. It’s a very unpleasant experience. Reflux is serious business. Chronic irritation of any cells long-term is asking for trouble. This said, almost everyone has occasional bouts of reflux. You want to avoid this if you are a sore throat sufferer. If you know you are going to over-eat, take an over-the-counter acid reducer before your meal (called a proton-pump inhibitor). If you forget to, then take one after the meal. I also use a couple of chewable calcium tablets before bed. Best thing to do is avoid over-eating and avoid food that gives you excess stomach acid.. Don't eat any solid food after 7pm at night. You can also put two bricks under the headboard-side legs of the bed to lift it slightly - reducing acid that might come up your esophagus. Foods: Everything you eat passes your throat. It is thus important to eat things which don’t irritate your throat. You may be surprised to learn what foods can irritate your throat. They are in order – with the worst first.
Coffee is really a bad-boy. First, it has over 900 plant alkaloids (chemicals) which include benzene and more importantly caffeine. The same thing that makes a steak taste great is also in roasted coffee beans (benzene and burning by-products). Coffee is a strong drug that constricts blood vessels and dries the throat. It is very rough on your system. Another bad side-effect is that under stimulants, people tend to talk more - and that works against you healing. If you are a throat patient, Kick the habit. There are some great herbal coffee substitutes. I prefer one called Roastaroma by Celestial Seasonings (brown box). Another good one is Pero. There is also an organic coffee substitute which is free, it’s called sleep. Get just 30 minutes more a night and you won’t need caffeine…and you won’t get sleepy at 3pm. Remember, your body does it's best healing in the last two hours of sleep. After sleep attends to re-charging your batteries, your body then can go about healing damage. I'm talking the hours of sleep between 7-9. If you sleep less than 8 hours a night, you are preventing yourself from healing. If you awaken early, just lay there and doze. You need every minute to heal. Back to foods..... Black tea, and any flavored black tea contains tannins which are irritating to the throat. Green tea is much milder, but still has caffeine which is contra-indicated. Check that what you are buying is actually fully herb tea, not flavored black tea. Many people think that herbal teas are lousy. They aren’t. They are a world of flavor and aromas which are waiting for you to explore. Traditional tea companies have ventured into the herbal tea market, but they are generally very poor quality. Look for brands which have a long history in herbal tea and offer dozens of flavors. Use small amounts of honey to sweeten. ( the traditional tea companies still can't make a good herbal tea) Ahh, chocolate. Chocolate comes from the same mountains that produce the most addictive substances in the world. It is a strong stimulant and was used by the Mayans in their religious rituals in order to see the future. Not a drug you say? Try to feel unhappy while you eat a dark chocolate bar from Belgium. It’s just not possible. Scientists say that chocolate contains the same chemicals that the body produces when you are in love. It also contains caffeine….and good amounts of it. Many bars also contain nuts. This combo is a no-no for an irritated throat. You may not be able to give this one up, but avoid it like the plague while your throat is inflamed. Peanuts are in more foods than you imagine. When ground up into butter (or simply chewed), the little nut pieces are like small sharp boulders to irritated throat cells. They lodge in throat folds and stick like glue. It’s like liquid sandpaper. Don’t eat them when you are irritated. Egg products and dairy products share a nasty thing called cholesterol. The cholesterol molecule itself looks like a little cork-screw and attaches itself to the throat’s walls. Secondly, these things aid in the production of mucus – which works against throat hydration. Minimize intake of them. Drinking milk seems to coat the throat and offer relief, but you are also consuming the milk and working against you long-term healing. Use herbal cough-drops. I will have to say that Ricola –original flavor- are the only lozenge that actually helps heal your throat. Short-term sugar and menthol coating by other brands does nothing for your throat beyond the 5 minutes they take to eat. Keep your eyes out for the good ones on sale and buy 10 bags at a time –they won’t go stale. Red wine, for all it’s beneficial effects on your heart, it very bad for an irritated throat. It contains the same tannins that black tea has, and also alcohol, which is a strong primary irritator and secondarily, a de-hydrator. White wine still has the alcohol, so it’s no real alternative – but a better choice if you must. Amazingly, hot sauce is not irritating (normal salsa). The cayenne in it actually increases blood flow which is beneficial. Alright, I’ve just suggested avoiding several of the things which make life worth living! If you live in France, it's probably a prescription for starvation! You are reading this because you are taking charge of healing yourself. It’s going to take serious commitment. The more you can follow the guidelines, the better will be your success. Once you heal up, you can re-introduce some of these things to your diet. Many of you (like myself) will have to discontinue eating most of these things if you want to be pain free. For me it’s an easy choice. I’m healthier overall for avoiding them anyway (and have a whole lot better disposition!). Sleep and the lack thereof: I cannot over-emphasize the need for adequate sleep. Americans are chronically sleep-deprived. The majority of people run up a sleep deficit until they finally sleep 12 hours and try to catch up. If you can fall asleep within 3 minutes – during the day – you are sleep deprived. Normal adults need 8 hours of sleep. I believe that most people just try to carve out a few extra hours at the end of the day for themselves. Usually, these are spent pressing the TV remote through cable channels or uselessly surfing the web. Your body re-charges and does it’s healing while you are sleeping. Lack of sleep contributes to mental confusion and stress. It’s amazing, but simply stopping caffeine use and getting 30 minutes more of sleep a night can alleviate scores of “illnesses” people suffer from. No amount of vitamins or time at the gym can make up for lack of sleep. There is a reason that the military uses sleep-depravation as a tool to crack terrorists. This is because lack of sleep makes you sick and depressed. Simply, the more sleep you get, the better your throat will feel. (you will also be resting your voice!) Throat-coat: I find this to be of great help during intensive throat repair. Take a 1000 Milligram (or two 400mg is ok) Vitamin E gel-cap and crush it using your rear-most molars- so that it coats your throat right before bed-time. Throat irritation is very similar to a burn and vitamin E has great healing powers in this area. Enough vitamin E to coat your throat is higher than the suggested daily dose (400mg), but I’ve used this technique for years with no ill effects. This technique is useful in long-term throat care too. Just use the minimum you can to coat the throat. Also, it seems that the “natural” vitamin E soft-gels are a little irritating when you first crush them. I suggest using the Vitamin E acetate – which is 95% of what is on shelves out there. Nasal Irrigation: This is a powerful tool which should become a part of your life’s routine, especially if you have allergies. Most people think you have to drown yourself to do this. Not so. Simply buy a saline nasal spray at the drug store. They are just over $2. Dump out the contents -it has irritating preservatives). Pull out the top and re-fill the bottle with your own spring water (or distilled if you have it) and add a pinch of salt before re-capping. I say “pinch” because bottles are different in size. You will know the right amount because you are trying to reach neutral salinity. You are matching the body’s salt level. If you use too little, it will feel like you got pool water up your nose, too much and it will burn like salt water. Just a pinch and it will be totally perfect – no sensation. Spray it up each nostril as you inhale slowly. Spray 4-6 times in each nostril. Blow it out and do it again. Twice is enough. This will also hydrate your nostrils before bed-time. The only caution is that since you are not using preservatives, the mixture can grow bacteria after a while. I find that the shelf life is about one week. When you re-fill the bottle, rinse it out with a little alcohol. Spray the alcohol through the nozzle too. Rinse well and re-fill. I have tried sea-salt, and I prefer regular table salt. Doing this will rinse out all the pollens, dust and contaminants your nose has dutifully filtered out for you. It will also lower your allergenic response to them (less mucus). Now go tell your friends about this one!! Zinc:Zinc is now available as a homeopathic spray. It acts as an anti-viral and it gives some immediate relief as well. It's sold as a cold cure by the name of Zicam. Look for it on the pharmacy shelves in an orange and white label. It comes in several forms - get the spray. It is best used at bedtime so the zinc can coat your throat overnight. This is an excellent part of your healing regimen (and darn if it isn't the first real cold cure that works!). Voice projection technique: Incorrect usage of the voice for prolonged periods can cause chronic irritation of the vocal chords and throat. As most people don’t know vocal technique, folks who use their voice to excess regularly - usually have chronic irritation. You produce your voice by pushing air through the vocal chords and out of your mouth and nose. It’s virtually no different than singing. The lungs, sinuses and throat area all contribute to the sound of your voice. Professional singers study voice technique so that they can project a loud sound often without damaging their throats. If you are a professional singer, skip this section because you already know this. Here is the technique boiled down to it’s most important elements. The goal is to produce the best sound with the least effort and irritation. First is that you need a good volume of air to work with. Breathe in a chest full of air before speaking. Here is the key element of good vocal technique. You have to open up your sinuses and upper vocal tract before you start to speak. To make this happen, make believe you are yawning..and feel the area open up. This is exactly the thing professionals do right before that big voice comes out. It becomes totally un-conscious for them. What this does is effectively make a bigger speaker cabinet for your voice to come from. If you do this before speaking (especially when you are in a noisy environment or during public speaking) you will use less effort and strain in making the sound you need to be heard. Take in a good volume of air, flare out the area in the nose and throat, and let your whole vocal tract resonate freely as you create the words. It may seem un-natural at first, but it helps tremendously in lowering the effort required to vocalize – and can be a key element in good throat care. There is plenty of information out there on vocal technique. Dr. Reddy's Pediatric Office on the Web TMSore Throat       There are many different causes for sore throats. Some causes are easily treated, some require antibiotics, and some cannot be treated at all -- you just have to wait out the cause, although over-the-counter medicines can help relieve the pain. Sore Throat Due to Dry AirThis is actually quite common -- I get them a lot myself in the winter, especially in cold weather when I forget to fill up the humidifier tanks with water. If the air is dry, your throat can dry out a bit with your breathing and become sore. Solution: drink plenty of fluids and make sure your house is humidified properly. (I have noticed that furnace humidifiers do not do a very good job of keeping the house properly humid. Even with a furnace humidifier you may still need table-top humidifers to stay comfortable.)Sore Throat Due to Coughs, Colds, and Runny NosesCoughing by itself can make your throat feel sore. So can postnasal drip -- mucus from the nose dripping down the back of the throat. If you have a dry cough, cough suppressants -- some of which you can buy without a prescription -- can quieten the cough and cut down on throat irritation. If you are coughing because of postnasal drip, I believe you should not use cough suppressants -- I have seen people get pneumonia that way, since if the suppressants work you may not be able to clear your lungs properly. Sometimes decongestants can help reduce the postnasal drip and thus reduce the cough, but with viral colds decongestants may not do very much. Humidity and drinking fluids will help, since they will keep the mucus from getting thick -- thick mucus is much harder to cough out than thin mucus. Sore Throat Due to VirusesThere are several viruses that attack the mucus membranes of the throat, the tonsils, or both. These viruses will often make your throat feel sore. Some of these viruses, like the adenoviruses, will also cause pus to accumulate on the tonsils just like strep does, and we need to test to see whether strep is the problem. Since there are no antibiotics for viruses, we still need to wait until the body gets rid of the virus itself, although humidity and fluids will soothe the throat and Tylenol will help with the pain.Sore Throat Due to Streptococcus(and Scarlet Fever, too...)Although there are other bacteria that can attack the throat, the most common bacterial cause of strep throat is Streptococcus pyogenes, or "group A strep". (As with other bacteria, there are several different kinds of strep, which are similar overall but differ in some biochemical details -- and, because of those details, in the way they infect people. S. pyogenes, or group A, is the kind that usually infects throats and causes scarlet fever.) The classic strep throat is very red (the description in some textbooks is "beefy red" or the colour of raw beef). Often you will see white or green "exudates" or pus on the tonsils, which are also swollen. You may also see little dark-red, almost purple, spots on the back of the roof of the mouth and on the uvula (the little "punching bag" that hangs from the center of the back of the mouth). The tongue may be very red with little white spots, like a strawberry (the "strawberry tongue") or white with little red spots, like a strawberry dipped in white chocolate. Sometimes a person with strep throat will have very bad breath, but this is not always true. Usually a person with strep throat will have swollen and tender lymph nodes at the front sides of the neck, and the throat will hurt so much that even swallowing liquids is painful. Coughing is rare with strep throat, unlike viral or dryness-related soreness. Temperature may go up to 103 or more. There are other things that can happen with strep throat. Scarlet fever is the best-known: this is a combination of strep throat with a rash, usually on the lower abdomen and spreading from there to the trunk, that consists of fine red bumps with a sandpaper-like consistency. The more important complications of strep throat, which usually do not happen unless the infection is left untreated for a long time, include
Fortunately, group A streptococcal infections are very easy to treat. No one has ever reported a case of strep throat that was not cured by penicillin. Penicillin G or V (the "plain" penicillins) usually work just fine, but have to be given as a shot (penicillin G) or 4 times a day on an empty stomach (penicillin V). Although some infectious disease specialists frown on it, amoxicillin also works well on strep, and has two advantages over penicillin V: it can be given three times a day, and it doesn't matter much if you give it on a full or an empty stomach. (Actually, there's a third advantage: it tastes better than penicillin V. As a pediatrician, that is important: antibiotics don't work too well if the patient won't take it.) Other antibiotics, such as erythromycin, will work almost as well and can be used in patients allergic to penicillin. One final note: although it is usually not associated with strep throat, group A strep can also produce a "necrotizing fasciitis" (the infamous "flesh-eating bacteria"). There is still little known about how group A strep gets thisout of hand. The treatment still involves penicillin, but in most cases surgical "debridement" (removing the dead tissue) must also be done to help keep the bug in check. HMM.. Salt water , LEMON HONEY DRINK works but not as well. I seem to get sore throats everytime the weather changes. ya.. i tried but take times , visit clinic for faster recovery 11 Comments | |
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Within a couple of hours your throat start to feel better.
But the simplest remedy that has always helped me is to drink tepid water instead of cold water whenever I feel thirsty. I keep hot water in a thermos flask on my bedside table, and only drink out of it.