Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.
Preventive Medicine

• If you feel a cold coming on, do not delay, but start treatment within 10 or 20 minutes of the first symptom. Immediately put your feet in hot water kept continually as hot as you can bear it for twenty minutes. Then run cold water over the feet, dry the feet, and cover them well or go to bed for half an hour.
• Eat sparingly and only on the usual mealtime schedule. Take no juice between meals. Use no sugar, honey, or very sweet fruit. Viruses replicate by use of phosphosugars. Avoiding sugar starves them. Eat whole grain breads and cereals. Get plenty of vitamins A, C, and D (exposure to sunshine best). B vitamins come from whole grains.
• Get plenty of extra, heavy exercise as long as it can be tolerated.
• Drink plenty of water, enough to keep the urine quite pale. Remember that sweating may be increased because of fever, extra exercise, or heating treatments. Extra water must be taken to replace this water lost in sweat.
• Keep bowels open. An enema taken at the first hint of the onset of symptoms will often prevent the development of a cold. Repeat the enema every 6-12 hours while symptoms last.
• Six charcoal tablets three times daily, between meals, for three days. If the throat is sore or there are mouth ulcers, allow the charcoal to dissolve in the mouth and bathe inflamed areas.
• Keep a regular schedule for bedtime and arising time. Take midday naps, if needed. Avoid exhaustion from long hours and loss of sleep.
• Take deep breathing exercises. Inhale deeply and hold breath for a slow count of 20. Exhale deeply and hold out for a slow count of 10. Repeat 40-50 times (this is work). Have good ventilation in bedrooms, but no drafts. Drafts chill body tissues unhealthfully.
• Use a hot water gargle for 10 minutes four times daily, if needed. Take a 15 minute hot half bath, followed by ice water pour, and skin friction with a dry towel.
• Apply a heating compress to the throat or chest as needed. Start with a linen strip about 2 by 16 inches, wet in cold water. Wrap this cloth around the throat. Next, completely cover the wet piece by a plastic sheet cut to fit from a bread bag. Finish off the compress by pinning a scarf in place, snugly, so that there will be no slipping of the plastic and no evaporation from the wet strip.
• Keep feet, hands, neck, and ears warmly clothed, both day and night. Avoid use of caffeine beverages (coffee, tea, colas). Caffeine causes constriction of the blood vessels of the hands and feet. There is a reflex mechanism between the hands and feet and the nasal mucous membrane. The hands and feet need to be kept warmly clothed at all times.
• Do not sleep with face covered; wear nightcap, if needed. Sleep in room with plenty of fresh air.
• Keep bedroom at 68 degrees. Avoid getting overheated, particularly sitting in a room which is too hot, as this causes dilation of blood vessels in the lungs with resulting congestion and loss of resistance.
• A daily bath fortifies against colds, especially if it is a cool bath.
• Taking drugs promotes getting a cold.
• Directions for transit time: The transit time is the length of time required for the intestinal tract to process a meal. Charcoal or sesame seed is used as a marker. The normal transit time is less than 30 hours; the average American time is over 89 hours.
• Chew 8-10 charcoal tablets or take 1-2 tablespoons of sesame seed, swallowed whole, just before eating a meal.
• Record the time of eating the meal.
• Record the time of each subsequent bowel movement.
• After the black color of the charcoal or free sesame seed are no longer seen in the stool, one calculates the transit time from the eating of the meal to the time of the last BM that contained any black color or seed.