Back to Basics

I'm fighting the human version of Ick today; it can't be cured with a little table salt the way my mom used to resurrect our goldfish. The table salt cure contains corn, by the way. People at the office have been calling in or their partners are full blown sick, I have a little bit of a little something mild. The best description I can come up with is I feel like a horse that is off her food. When I couldn’t face my coffee yesterday, I knew something was wrong.

So, I'm not sick enough to actually take a sick day and I have TONS to get done if I actually want one of the three days off this weekend. So, if could treat myself normally, it would be take two Tylenol and a Tums and get to work. That's not going to work. I could get a bunch of extra sleep after the benadryl and the Epi-Pen and the IV benadryl...but that is too much drama for a low energy day. So, alternative sources for common medicines it is.

After the makers of Children's Motrin decided to change their flavors last fall and add sorbitol and citric acid to the new fun tropical fruit and blue raspberry flavor, I lost my last safe treatment for fever. At that point it was time to suck it up and trial the original form of aspirin, white willow bark. No, I didn't go chew on a tree, I went to Whole Foods and talked to their supplements person to find what looked safe for me. (Put it through the poison protocol and it worked). White willow bark contains salicin and was the basis for the synthesis of aspirin. An easier option is to get compounded Tylenol made for you, but at $1 pill, it can get a bit pricy. (Talk to your doc before you make any changes in what you use!)

Tums are out too, so I go back to that cure-all from the last time I trekked to Mukitnath, near the Kingdom of Mustang, in Nepal. Peppermint Tea. Altitude sickness? Peppermint Tea! Guardia? Peppermint Tea! Lost Passport? Peppermint Tea! Snow Blindness? Peppermint Tea! It's good for everything, so I'm sure that it will help with a little ick. Ick? Peppermint Tea!

I'm going to make some peppermint tea and take my willow bark so I can go be a productive member of modern society. Sometimes you have to go back to basics for safety. Next time you can't find a product you need without corn in it, try stepping back to its earlier form. Back to basics is working for me.

If that doesn’t work, Peppermint Tea!