Natural Sore Throat Cure

On Saturday night I felt a sore throat coming on. It started around 6pm, just a slight soreness, but enough to make me think “uh oh – am I getting sick?” You know the kind of soreness I’m talking about. The kind that always comes along right before you get full blown sick. By the time I went to bed on Saturday night, it felt a little worse – but I hoped that with a good night’s sleep it would go away. No luck – the pain in my throat woke me up around midnight – my throat hurt so badly that I could hardly swallow.

I was about to admit defeat.  Yes, I was definitely getting sick. It was the night before my graduation from IIN, so it was terrible timing. I was thinking I’d definitely have to call in sick from work on Monday too.  *Sigh.*

Then I thought about it for a second. Wait a minute. I said to myself, “DUDE!  Tomorrow you’ll be certified as a holistic health coach. Shouldn’t you be able to figure out how to stop this?!”

So stop it I did.

I got myself out of bed, quickly looked up a few things, and proceeded to try the following remedies:

• 1 – Drink 3 cups of water with lemon juice & cayenne pepper
• 2 – Eat 2 spoonfuls of raw honey
• 3 – Drink 1 cup of clove tea

I KID YOU NOT, within minutes of taking these remedies, the pain was no longer excruciating – it became tolerable, and within about 30 minutes it was completely gone. I woke up the next day with no trace of a sore throat. I didn’t have to go to the doctor or take a sick day or get on any meds.  Success!! I actually couldn’t believe how quickly this worked.

You know…now that I think about it, you could probably just lump all of this together into one drink, and make clove tea with raw honey, lemon and cayenne. But hey, this is what I tried, so I’m just reporting from the field!

Let’s go through each thing in more detail:

Lemon juice/cayenne water: Lemon juice and cayenne pepper both have anti-fungal, immune boosting, and detoxification properties and are very helpful in healing infections. It’s actually great for your throat if you can gargle this drink, but I am terrible at gargling so I just drank it. Warning: gargling or drinking cayenne water can give you a burning sensation on your lips/tongue. Only use a pinch of cayenne so you can tolerate it. After a few cups you might actually like it. :)

Raw honey: Raw honey has antimicrobial and antioxidant properties, and inhibits bacterial growth to heal and reduce infections. I ate a couple of spoonfuls right from the jar, after drinking the cayenne water. This felt really soothing to my throat and seemed to help significantly.

Clove tea: Cloves are also anti-fungal and have anesthetic properties, which helps relieve the pain of a sore throat. I used this herbal clove tea from the Chopra Center. You can try that tea or another tea with cloves in it. The ingredients in the tea I used are: organic cloves, organic ginger root, organic cinnamon bark, organic peppermint leaves, organic cardamom, organic allspice, organic orange peel and organic black pepper. Hint: If you wake up in the middle of the night with a sore throat, make sure to choose a non-caffeinated clove tea so you can get back to sleep.

So next time you feel a sore throat coming on – don’t automatically cancel your plans assuming you’re getting sick. Try these remedies first. You may be very pleasantly surprised!!

***Disclaimer: this is not to be considered a substitute for medical treatment. If you don’t see any improvement from this remedy, see your doctor. :)