Winter is the season of colds!!! Some of you can suffer from cold sensitivity, making you go around in circles during the winter. Homeopathic remedies can help you recover faster from the common cold and alleviate symptoms of sore throat and blocked nose.

During this time of the year, all of us are susceptible to acute viral conditions affecting the upper respiratory tract, shaking up our organisms for several days.

This makes us feel unwell, and often we lose a few days of work or school.  

Homeopathy is a very safe, gentle and effective medicine that can help us recover faster from winter colds.

For more cold remedies and the flu go here.

BANERJI PROTOCOL FOR COLDS

It works extremely well at the first site of developing a cold. Try it, and you will never look back to taking anything else!!

Aconite200+Bryonia30, both remedies are taken together simultaneously as a dose every 3 hours.

BANERJI PROTOCOL FOR COLD SENSITIVITY

Calcarea Carbonica 1M once per week for 4-6 weeks

HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES FOR THE COMMON COLD IN THE FIRST STAGES

ACONITE 200c: use for a cold that comes on suddenly from being chilled by cold dry weather or sweating and then getting cold.

For instance, you start with the cold symptoms when coming back from a walk in the countryside on a very cold morning and feeling chilled. Or maybe feeling cold after sweating in the gym. 

This remedy is useful primarily during the first few days.

Symptoms may include restlessness, red hot cheeks, intense thirst, clear watery discharge and high fever.

​ALLIUM CEPA 30c: A streaming cold with much sneezing and watery eyes.

A clue: your face may look as if you have been chopping an onion!

Eyes may look red, they feel burning and smarting and are sensitive to light. There is also a raw feeling in the nose and a tingling sensation with violent sneezing.

A profuse watery discharge from the nose is burning and can make the upper lip and nose raw.  

All symptoms are better in the open air and the person feels worse in the evening and in a warm room.

EUPHRASIA 30c: This remedy has opposite symptoms to Allium Cepa.

The profuse eye watery discharge is acrid, and the nasal discharge is bland.

The white of the eyes and the chicks may become reddened by the acrid tears, and the lids feel like burning and are swollen.

There is a frequent inclination to blink. The nasal discharge is worse at night and while lying down.

ARSENICUM 30c: very restless and anxious, thin watery discharge that burns.

Nose is blocked, sneezing without relief.

Intense thirst little and often.

Feels better with hot applications, hot food and drink. Worse at night and in cold air. If you are having a sore throat, it may be relieved by sipping hot drinks.

The head is hot , but the body is cold.

Maybe feeling a bit breathless from a dry or wheezing cough.

NUX-VOMICA 30c: the nose feels blocked but is running at one side.

 It may alternate between a watery discharge and being blocked.

The discharges tend to flow during the day and in open-air but are obstructed at night, and it feels very stuffed up. There is a lot of abortive sneezing, and the person feels cold.

The person may be very irritable with the cold.

REMEDIES FOR SORE THROAT

BELLADONNA 30: this is one of the best homeopathic remedies to aid cold symptoms and help with the initial stages of sore throat.

The throat feels dry and hot, and the tonsils may look quite red. The whole area looks bright red and swollen.

You may feel a constant desire to empty swallow, wich is quite painful. It feels like a “scraping sensation on the throat when swallowing”

HEPAR SULPH 200C: for general sore throat pain. This is one of the homeopathic remedies for often indicated for a sore throat during the early stages of a cold.

The pain may resemble a sharp splinter stuck in the tonsils.

The sore throat may feel worse when you are breathing cold air, or if your throat is uncovered.

If you are experiencing a sore throat with tonsil inflammation, look at more remedies in this blog.

LACHESIS 30

This is for sore throats that are especially worse on the left side.

Very painful sore throats that are worse on empty swallowing but less with food.

Worse when swallowing liquids.

LYCOPODIUM 30

This is for sore throats that are especially worse on the right side.

Inflammation of the throat with soreness and pain that is better on swallowing warm drinks.

You may feel more pain after having a cold drink or after sleep.

REMEDIES FOR A MORE ESTABLISHED COLD

MERCURIUS SOL 30c: cold with alternating sweats and chills worse at night.
Colds that travel upward and attack the eyes.

Thick yellow-green discharge of either nose or ear with the cold. These discharges can be quite bad smelling and the skin around them can be sore.

PULSATILLA 30c: this is for colds with a lot of congestion and a thick discharge that can be green-yellow.  This is one of the most indicated homeopathic remedies for an established cold towards the end.

This remedy tends to be more indicated in ripe colds.

The nasal congestion tends to be on alternate sides of the nose and is worse inside the house but better in the fresh air.
So you may find that your nose starts running as soon as you come home.

Loss of smell with the cold. Thirstlessness.

You may feel miserable and wants sympathy and comfort. Feeling “sorry for yourself”.

The congestion can extend to the ear, and they may feel blocked or if they are about to pop.

Pulsatilla and Kali Bich are complementary remedies and follow each other well.

Have you been the child that has always suffered from a stuffy nose with thick yellow-green discharge? Maybe you had a few decongestants or even antibiotics for acute ear or throat infections that always end up with congestion in the ears, nose and throat. And as an adult, as an adult, you are suffering from recurrent bouts of sinus infections? This is your connection! Kali Bich is worse by suppressed catarrh.

NATRUM-MUR 30c: Infallible for stopping a cold commencing with sneezing.

Violent fluent discharge of thin, watery like raw white of egg or cold with discharge only in the morning.

Violent sneezing and dryness of the throat and nose producing scabs.

The cold symptoms may start with an emotional upset of some kind, for instance, grief such as a divorce, loss of a pet, argument with a friend or family member, etc

BANERJI PROTOCOL FOR BLOCKED NOSE

For blocked nose and sinus pressure during a head cold the Banerjies suggest:

Sanguinaria 200 twice daily

KALI-BICH 30c: this is for thick, stringy, lumpy discharges and congestion at the root of the nose. Tough and elastic plugs. 

Complete obstruction of the nose.

Sneezing worse in the morning. Tickling in the larynx with a cough worse when eating.

Sinus complaints.

GELSEMIUM 200c: great weakness; symptoms are slow to appear, drowsy and lethargic, and the eyelids feel heavy.

There is aching, soreness and heaviness of the limbs too.

The person wants to lie down and may have a heavy head. The discharge is very watery.

This remedy is indicated for a heavy cold or the flu.

DOSING THE REMEDIES

You may take a remedy 3 times a day or every 3 hours for a few days and then on, as the symptoms improve and the frequency of repetition reduces.

​If you have not noticed an improvement after the second day, then you may need a different remedy from the one chosen.

LEARN HOW REMEDIES MOVE IN CASE-LEARN REMEDY RELATIONSHIPS TO HELP YOU NAVIGATE THROUGH YOUR ACUTE-CHRONIC PRESCRIPTIONS ( ALSO CALLED COMPLEMENTARY REMEDIES)

If you have read several of my blogs, you would have heard me talking about remedy relationships, complementary remedies or, particularly, ACUTE-CHRONICS.

The first point of learning about them is in your Materia Medica on the bottom bit, where you will read Remedy Relations, and you will see complementary and follow well. For instance, in Allen Key Notes, you will see -Aconite is the Acute Sulphur- and both precedes and follow it in acute inflammatory conditions.

However, other Acute-Chronic relations are not found in textbooks but through clinical experience in practice. Many are learned from clinical experience and not found in books. Not all of them are recorded!

The term ACUTE-CHRONIC has been thrown around through our homoeopathic training mechanically, and this is how we have just gotten by on those days. But through the years, these are my observations into Acute, Chronic or complementary remedies are:

• ACUTE AND CHRONIC REMEDIES help us understand predictable movement patterns in a case. We can see them in action on a daily basis in your patients.

• ACUTE REMEDIES tend to cover the intense part of the beginning of the condition. These remedies preceded the next stage of the case.

• CHRONIC REMEDIES tend to cover the progression of that illness in the second stage. They hold a complementary action to the acute remedies.

• ACUTE REMEDIES tend to have quick and intense symptoms. For instance, a chesty cough or acute grief. -CHRONIC REMEDIES tend to cover more pathology than acute ones ( although not always the case! Lachesis is an acute of Lycopodium, and Lachesis is a deep remedy with deep pathology).

• CHRONIC REMEDIES tend to correct recurring or continued patterns.

And you may be thinking, how can this help me to choose remedies for a cold? Let me show you.

Acute and chronic or complementary remedies are remedies that follow each other well and follow each other in a case. Look at the example of Ipecac and Ant tart above; can you see the natural progression of those remedies?

So think that if you are caring for someone with an acute cough that has changed into a different one with new symptoms, this means that you will probably need remedies that follow the progression of those changes, and the best place is to look for remedies that follow each other well!

Another scenario that you may apply this is when someone keeps throwing the same acutes often. This is an indication that a more chronic remedy is needed.

You can learn about Remedy Relations on your Materia Medica or in a bit more depth on my Dosing Mastery Course Module 4!