Build Your Immunity Before Winter Hits

Are you considering a flu vaccine shot this winter?  After all it is free and according to the WHO influenza causes severe illness in three to five million people around the world and accounts for on average between 250,000 to 500,000 deaths per year. The economic fallout of lost productivity is in the billions.

Look around you. Everyone is surrounded by people with infections.  We are all exposed to sneezing on the trains, coughing on fresh produce in supermarkets, the wiping of the nose and the handing over of diseased money.

However, when you logically and without a doomsday ideology, think about this exposure, you realise not everyone who is exposed to pathogens contracts debilitating colds, flu, sinusitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, or pneumonia during the winter.

What is poorly understood in today’s society is that the flu vaccine every year protects you from THREE to FOUR strains of influenza. There is actually more than 200 viruses that can cause similar symptoms to influenza.

If you constantly get sick and take a long time to recover you have a lowered immune system.  Instead of relying on the flu vaccination odds of 4 out > 200 you may wish to see a naturopath and try liquid herbs as a combination treatment strategy.

Throughout the year, people with lowered immune systems may also have other signs and symptoms including

• Fatigue
• Puffy face
• Dark areas under the eyes
• Difficulty seeing at night
• Eyes tear, burn or discharge
• Frequent cold sores or mouth ulcers
• Post nasal drip or nasal discharge
• Chronic cough
• Bumpy skin on back of arms
• Hair falls out easily
• Wounds heal slowly
• Impaired taste or smell
• Glands feel enlarged on neck, under armpits and in groin.

Naturopaths and liquid herbs work in both the prevention and the treatment of an acute cold, flu, infectious diseases and they work to restore immune systems. The best thing about herbs in viral infections is that they not only kill viruses, but they are also anti bacterial.  This means that if you use them in the initial stages of a cold or flu you are actually preventing the likelihood of developing secondary pneumonia or sinusitis.

Liquid herbs are prescribed on an individual basis so the practitioner can actually give a herb designed for the individual presentation of total signs and symptoms.  If you think about when you get sick you realise no two infections presented exactly the same. Even within households family members exposed to the same virus present with different symptoms.

With liquid herbs and naturopathy you can also design a treatment plan to deal with other winter seasonal issues like poor circulation, chill blains, cold hands and feet, dry skin, dry lips and winter mood disorders known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

So before winter hits why don’t you try to get your immune system working really well and come into Coastal Natural Therapies Gold Coast and see what we can do for you.