Drug-Free Ways to Prevent Infection and Self-Help Once Infected

Doctor zhou December 15, 2022

These days my consultation load doubles every day, so that I can barely spare time even to write articles (because work is busy, I may be unable to update daily for a while). Almost everyone consults me because of various symptoms after being infected with Omicron: most have fever and body aches, then sore throat, while children commonly present with nausea, profuse phlegm, and breathing distress; the elderly, besides fever and body pain, often also develop dizziness and fatigue.

The great majority of those consulting me, because of the medical crunch, can neither see a doctor nor buy medicine. Even if I gave medication advice, most people still couldn't solve the supply problem, so I can only find drug-free ways to help everyone.

First, I hope those not yet infected will still prioritize prevention and avoid infection. Once infected, treat early to prevent progression to a severe state.

I should note: the Omicron infections I have seen mostly begin with wind-cold cold symptoms, not the wind-heat cold that some authoritative bodies and experts claim. Many people, following guidelines issued by some authorities, took acrid-cool exterior-releasing and heat-clearing, toxin-resolving patent medicines for wind-heat, and their symptoms only worsened the more they took them.

This is truly a case of a hair's breadth missing the mark by a thousand li. Although a few days after Omicron infection most patients develop dry mouth and sore throat, at onset the dominant symptoms are chills and body pain—this is a wind-cold cold. Moreover, illness occurring in this season should first be treated as wind-cold.

So to prevent colds we should act as for wind-cold: keep warm, do one or two sweating workouts every day, and rest well. Drink hot soup or hot drinks 2–3 times a day; my family has hot porridge or hot soy milk in the morning, hot vegetable soup at lunch, and hot water after dinner, each time until we sweat lightly. My son's classmates and teachers are basically all feverish; he is not. Of the seven people in my wife's office, the other six all have fever; she does not. And as for me, I have so far had no symptoms. This set of wind-cold-prevention methods has worked very well for us. I hope everyone sticks to them during this period to boost immunity and avoid infection and fever.

If you are constitutionally weak and don't sweat easily, so that hot drinks and exercise don't bring on sweat, you should also consider soaking your feet in hot water daily. In short, find ways to break a little sweat every day. Sweating speeds blood circulation and lets the immune system work better. A light sweat lets the body clear the virus the moment it is first infected, before it can multiply rapidly. The lower the viral load, the easier it is to handle, so good daily prevention plus acting at the first sign of discomfort makes severe symptoms very unlikely.

Ventilate the home well. It is freezing in Beijing now, but my kitchen and bathroom are ventilated 24 hours a day, and I wear a mask when cooking and washing dishes in the kitchen. These two places are most prone to aerosol transmission; the rest of the home is relatively safe and need not be ventilated around the clock, and you need not wear a mask elsewhere. Once the peak passes, life can return to normal.

Doing prevention well and avoiding infection at the peak lets you avoid being unable to seek care normally during the medical crunch. Given how severe the crunch has become, many frail people, once infected or progressing to severe illness, may barely escape.

Another important point: everyone must control salt intake. For a family of three, cooking salt should be kept under 6 g a day—no more than 2 g per person, ideally only 1.5 g per person per day. My wife has familial hypertension; recently I strictly limited the salt in our home cooking, plus moderate medication, and her blood pressure dropped from over 140 (nearly 170 at peak) to over 110.

So controlling salt intake is crucial for lowering blood pressure and protecting the cardiovascular system; most middle-aged and elderly people whose antihypertensives fail do so because their daily salt control is poor. Among the consultations I've taken these days, those with severe symptoms are mostly hypertensives. Foreign research also shows Omicron has raised cardiovascular mortality considerably. Among our domestic critical patients, many have hypertension and old cardiovascular/cerebrovascular lesions, so salt control is vital for such patients. Diabetics are also at risk, so they must control sugar.

If you are unfortunately infected, you must act the moment mild symptoms first appear. Most patients' mild symptoms are dizziness, chills, and throat discomfort. At this point, drink lots of hot water, or ginger-scallion water (boiled ginger and scallion together) or ginger-garlic water (boiled ginger and garlic cloves) to sweat; there is a good chance of intercepting the fever. You can also soak your feet in ginger-scallion or ginger-garlic water at the same time. Ginger-scallion and ginger-garlic water not only induce sweat and dispel cold but also invigorate blood; they are very effective dietary therapies. Those who can eat raw garlic can eat raw cloves plus extra hot water, which also works well.

A colleague of my wife's spiked a fever over 39°C last night; drinking ginger-scallion water to sweat broke the fever, and it has not returned since. A fellow townsman of mine working at a Wuhan hospital also spiked a fever above 38.5°C; sweating with ginger-garlic water broke it better than his colleague's ibuprofen.

If you have no ginger, scallion, or garlic at home, you can still drink lots of hot water while soaking your feet in hot water and running the hairdryer on hot from the cervical spine along the spine to the coccyx, slowly. These methods induce sweat quickly; once the sweat comes, the fever can drop, body aches ease, and sore throat eases considerably. But be careful not to sweat too heavily; a light sweat is enough.

If pain remains in some spot, blow it with the hairdryer, apply a hot towel, do moxibustion there, or stick on a warming patch—all can quickly stop pain. For sore throat, apply a hot towel or warming patch to the neck; it also helps. Taking wind-heat cold medicine mostly worsens the pain; only those with dry mouth and dark urine are suited to wind-heat patent medicines. Such patients are fewer than one in ten, yet perhaps 90% of patients are currently taking wind-heat medicines.

When someone at home shows infection symptoms, parents must promptly care for infants and toddlers. Give infants a hot compress 2–3 times a day, or blow them with the hairdryer, to promote sweating; this lowers their chance of fever. Focus the compress on the forehead and back of the neck; if they won't sweat, heat the whole back. When using the hairdryer on infants, again blow from the cervical spine along the spine to the coccyx.

For nausea and vomiting patients, slice ginger and hold it in the mouth. For severe vomiting with no medicine available, after washing the hands well, insert a finger into the throat to induce vomiting; bringing up the vomit eases the nausea and dizziness. At the same time, drink lots of hot water or ginger-scallion water to sweat, which usually helps.

For those with phlegm hard to cough up and shortness of breath, lie prone and have a family member pat the back to help expel phlegm. In severe cases with no care or medicine available, a family member, after washing hands well, can insert fingers into the throat to induce vomiting; this prevents the patient from suffocating.

The above are stopgap measures for times when, under a medical crunch, you cannot seek normal care. Please, whenever there is any way, seek proper hospital care. While taking these emergency measures, find a way to get medical help. Severely ill patients should use the emergency channel and, if necessary, find a way through the gates. Omicron kills fast; if after three days of home treatment symptoms are still worsening, with shortness of breath or chest pain, you must find a way to hospital.

These are my currently effective experiences; if I accumulate more later, I will share further.

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