Monday, October 26, 2009

H1N1 Advice

This may not be the most pleasant inaugural post for a new blog, but I have some information I am wanting to share and thought, 'why not?'.

Here is some interesting H1N1 advice passed to my Mom by a friend who works in health care. It seems like good, sound advice, and may include some things you haven't thought of.

In addition, but off-topic, I felt I needed to post this because when I went to forward it I realized I no longer have email contacts for many of my closest friends. Most of the addresses in my contact list are for business - all of my social e-comms take place on other formats. How do you keep in touch with friends?

K

Good Advice for Preventing H1N1

1. Frequent hand washing

2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach

3. Gargle twice daily with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). H1N1 takes 2 - 3 days after initial infection in the throat/nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple. inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3, clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Not everyone may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but blowing the nose hard at least once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral populations.

5. Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6. Drink as many warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. It washes proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive or do harm.

* This advice comes from Dr. Vinay Goyal, MBBS, DRM, DNB (Intensivist & Thyroid Specialist) . He is presently heading the Nuclear Medicine Dept and Thyroid Clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W).*

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