Laura’s Prepping Diary: 9/30/11

I mentioned last weekend that one of the children had gotten pinkeye.  I dutifully took him to the pediatrician.  Without culturing it, he thought it was probably bacterial since there were no other cold symptoms and he prescribed antibiotic drops.

The next day the cold symptoms showed up and have stuck around as the child spread the illness around the family.

Well, family member number 4 succumbed this morning- me.  Not that it surprised me that having 3 sick kids in my lap would lead to me getting it, but still I was hopeful to be spared.  No such luck.

Since the drops hadn’t helped anyone else, I had no reason to believe they would help me either (though I will store them away in the fridge in case of a post-TEOTWAWKI bacterial outbreak!).  I then checked our weekend calendar since one other child and I have active symptoms.  It wouldn’t be kind to pass this along.

We have a fantastic local homeschool group and tomorrow night a family bonfire is scheduled.  I emailed the hostess to let her know we probably wouldn’t make it after all and why.

She immediately emailed me back and told me about the homeopathic remedy she has used for years that works really quickly for them.  You know I would rather use a natural remedy anyway, so I was game.  I thought.

Here it is:  Get a capful of distilled or filtered water.  Add 3 grains of cayenne pepper to it and swish it around for a bit.  Use a dropper and put 1 -2 drops in affected eyes every few hours.

Yes, cayenne pepper water, in my eyes!  I had to pep myself up for this.

I finally got the courage to try it.

I let the grains settle out into the bottom of the cap because I really didn’t think putting the grains in would be a good idea, in case they actually scratched the corneas.  The liquid I drew up had a slight red tint to it, but no grains that I could see.

I did it.

It stung, which I anticipated, but not nearly as badly as I had thought it would.  If you consider how much putting any drops into an inflamed eye stings (Visine or whatever), it wasn’t too bad.  The sting only lasted for maybe a count of 3 while my eyes watered, and then surprisingly, about 15 seconds later, they felt noticeably better than before the drops.

Cayenne is an herb I plan to do a “Spice of Life” post on eventually, so I knew it is a powerhouse of flavor, is nutritious, and has medicinal uses.  What I had never heard before was using it for eye infections.  I’ve read up on it today and found that, indeed, there is info out there about this use.  A couple sources caution against using it in the eyes for the immediate irritant effect and because it would be easy to make it too potent.  Quite a few have very positive things to say about its use, along with testimonials.

Since I am having extreme allergy problems from ragweed already and this virus has lingering cold symptoms along with it, I am also taking cayenne capsules.  Joe takes them all the time for congestion issues, but I haven’t gotten in the habit mostly because I was concerned about heartburn, etc.  I’ve been careful to take them with lots of water and in the midst of eating food, like dairy.

I’m hoping to boost my immune response from the inside out also.  I’m tempted to throw some echinacea or other herbs and vitamins into the mix for good measure, but it wouldn’t be a very good experiment if I did.

I’ll let you know if I seem to get better faster than the kids did.