It turns out, I’m not superhuman.
Who’d’ve guessed?
Fiance came home last week with a very mild case of the stomach flu, and I didn’t even think twice about it. Seriously, it never even crossed my mind that I’d get it too.
I got it alright. I got it times infinity. What for him was 8 hours of tiredness and an upset stomach, for me was over 36 hours of a writhing, feverish, throw-uppy, hallucinatory wild ride.
I was not prepared for it, either. I had nothing ready. Nothing available to help mitigate the sickness. Nothing but me and my porcelain god.
So this here, this is a cautionary tale. Here are ways you can help be ready for the stomach flu this winter.
And I fear the title is a teensy bit misleading: There’s no real way to “home remedy” yourself out of the stomach flu (otherwise known as gastroenteritis).
But while there may not be any cure for the icky sicky, there are plenty of things we can do to help avoid it, lessen the effects, treat the symptoms, and speed up recovery.
Stomach Flu Prevention
Now, you guys probably know the basics here. Things like:
- Wash your hands often, especially when you’ve been around ill people.
- Eat plenty of foods high in antioxidants, like blueberries, garlic, and green tea.
- Keep your stress levels at a minimum.
- Be nice to your stomach by not drinking loads of soda, coffee, or alcohol.
But I have something you may not have heard about. A secret weapon for the flu season.
It’s called astragalus root.
This stuff kind of looks like tongue depressors, but it’s actually a very potent root and a great way to boost your immune system in the winter months.
Astragalus has been a staple of Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years, and is used for many maladies (including lowering blood pressure and providing energy). Its most effective use, though, is as a very hearty immune booster.
You don’t actually eat the dried root itself, though you can find astragalus extract in health food stores. This is what I did last winter:
I kept a jar of astragalus root next to my stove. Once or twice a week, whenever I cooked something that either sauteed or was a soup of some sort, I’d toss in half a stick of astragalus and allow it to cook with my food. Then, I just pulled the root out before I eat the food.
Astragalus has no taste at all, which is awesome. You super charge your food with immune boosters, and you don’t even know it.
What to Do When You First Suspect the Stomach Flu
I wish I could take my own advice here, two days ago. Because I have intimate insight at this moment, please forgive my first tip (but understand that I believe it’s the most important):
- Clean your toilet. Throwing up is horrible stuff, but it’s eighty times worse when you realize, just as you open the lid, that you haven’t cleaned your toilet in a week. Even a day-old cleaned toilet at that point is disturbing. As SOON as you start to feel icky or even suspect that you’re getting sick, clean your toilet.
- Take some vitamin C. It may be too late, and your body may not digest all of it, but the faster you can get antioxidants into your system at this point, the better off you’ll be.
- Avoid spicy or acidic foods. Gastroenteritis often starts as a slight nausea, probably not enough to keep you from eating the Thai takeout you ordered just before you started feeling a little icky. Put it in the fridge and don’t touch it until you’re sure you’re well. Your stomach and throat will thank you for it later.
- Make sure you have ginger, bananas, and crackers. Either send your spouse to the store, or if you’re not terribly sick yet, get there yourself. These will come in handy later.
- Put on more clothes. You may not be able to avoid the chills completely, but tossing on a pair of socks and a sweatshirt may help your body regulate its temperature before a fever sets in.
Treat Your Stomach Flu Symptoms
Sadly, there’s not a lot you can do for yourself once viral gastroenteritis sets in. Once the first visit to the toilet happens, you’re probably not going to be able to eat or drink anything at all for a few hours.
So just forget about that for now. If you feel up to it, you can suck on a piece of ice (it’s important to stay as hydrated as you can), but don’t try to put too much into your stomach, because it’s just going to head on back up soon anyway.
Here are some other things you can do, though, that don’t involve eating or drinking:
- Take a cool bath with mustard. Mustard helps draw out impurities from your body and it increases circulation. If you have a fever, make sure your bath is on the cool side. Add 2 Tbsp mustard powder to 1/4 c. baking soda, and stir it in the bathwater. Relax as much as you possibly can.
- Put a warm towel on your stomach. If your flu involves stomach cramps, one way to get them to chill out a bit is to warm your stomach muscles up. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re running a high fever, but it’s one way to keep yourself from doubling over in pain every few minutes.
- And then put a cool peppermint washcloth on your head. You could skip the peppermint and just use a cool washcloth to help lessen a fever and headache, but if you add peppermint to the mix, you’ll get extra headache-fighting powers and relief from nausea. Either soak the washcloth in peppermint tea (and put it in the freezer until it’s cold), or put two or three drops of peppermint essential oil on the washcloth after wetting it down with cool water.
- Have someone special rub your feet. One tried-and-true home remedy for nausea is a good old-fashioned foot rub. Have your lovey grab some shea or cocoa butter and go to town on your footsies. It may keep you from lurching to the bathroom so often.
- Pinch away your headache. Take your first finger and thumb and pinch (as hard as you can) the very sensitive webbing between your other first finger and thumb. This simple acupuncture-type treatment might help lessen the headache pain significantly.
- Sleep as much as humanly possible, and stop worrying about your life. This was the hardest thing for me the last couple of days. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was worrying about what I wasn’t getting done. It didn’t help me get better any faster, and–surprise–the world didn’t fall apart during my down time.
What to do When You’re on the Mend
One of the quickest ways to mend an upset stomach is to break out the yummy ginger tea. I drink it whenever things feel a little unsettled in the digestive area, but it’s been a GIANT help today as I’m getting better.
Here’s how you do it:
Cut about four quarter-sized slices of peeled ginger (ginger peels VERY easily using the side of a spoon, by the way). Boil some water, and pour it in a tea mug. Add 1 tsp honey and stir. Then put in the ginger and let the mixture cool to a drinkable temperature. You don’t even need to remove the ginger. Just let it keep steeping as you drink up.
In addition to the ginger tea, there are other things you can do to help speed up recovery and be ready for a fresh, new, and exciting day when you wake up the morning after. Here are some ideas.
- Eat slowly – MCBRAT. Don’t eat until you’re ready – until it’s starting to sound kind of good, and when you do eat, do it slowly. A tiny bit at a time – and choose one of the foods from the MCBRAT diet. The BRAT diet is the standard diet for children who have diarrhea, but it’s perfect for recovering flu sufferers. BRAT stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. MC stands for mashed potatoes and crackers. Whatever you eat, make sure they’re VERY bland foods that are high in starch. Bananas are especially good, because they also replace the potassium you lost by throwing up or having diarrhea.
- Drink chamomile tea. If you’re feeling up to it at any point in your flu, head for the chamomile tea. This is going to soothe your stomach tremendously, and it may also help with the stomach cramps (chamomile is a calmative). This is great as your on the mend, or even during your bout of flu, if you think you can handle it.
- Allow yourself time. Just because you’re not writhing around in pain doesn’t mean you should jump up and start cleaning the kitchen. Relapses are VERY common with viral gastroenteritis, and one way you can absolutely ensure a relapse is if you start doing too much too quickly. Take an extra day off if you have to. Otherwise, you could end up in bed for another three.
- Drink everything you can, except coffee, alcohol, dark soda, or milk. Water, (decaffeinated) tea, juice, ginger ale … you name it. Whatever you can drink, do it. You need to rehydrate, sicky. You need to rehydrate as soon as you possibly can.
- Take your vitamins. Don’t do this on an empty stomach, because it could cause extra nausea. But the faster you can replenish your vitamin stores after you start eating, the better. Most importantly, though, try to take a potassium supplement ASAP. Vomiting and diarrhea do very nasty things to your potassium reserves. In addition, the World Health Organization recommends that children take a zinc supplementation for up to two weeks after suffering from a bout of gastroenteritis.
- Eat yogurt, but skip the artificially sweetened kind. Any fermented milk product would work here (like kefir … yum). Fermented milk products have been shown to reduce the duration of gastroenteritis symptoms, as they contain good bacteria that regulates the stomach flora. Just avoid yogurt or kefir that also uses artificial sweeteners – bad for your stomach and your health.
- Read a book. Write a letter. While you’re on the mend from the stomach flu, you’ve got some down time you hadn’t planned for. This down time shouldn’t be spent working – it should be spent recuperating. So do something relaxing that you wouldn’t normally do. That book on your shelf you’ve been meaning to get to? Thank the illness. You now have time.
One More Note: Vomiting and diarrhea can dehydrate you to dangerous levels if they’re prolonged in duration. If you’ve suffered from vomiting or diarrhea for more than 48 hours or are running a temperature over 103, you should give your doctor a call or visit the urgent care center.
Okay, so I’m feeling MUCH better after writing all of this. While I may not have been ready for my illness, hopefully some of you will be ready now – just in case.
Do you have anything you like to do when the stomach flu makes its unwanted appearance?
Any secrets or home remedies we should all know?
In time-for-chicken-soup crunch!
thank you so much, I can’t express enough how helpful this is to me. You are truly amazing.
I’m now in my early 60s and have always had a weak tummy which is very vulnerable to stomach viruses. The one thing that has really helped me in overcoming the pain and nausea it gives me is pure cranberry juice. This is not the sweetened variety that you see in your grocer’s juice department. It is the unsweetened and very sour tasting type on the health food shelf. It is so awful tasting that you need to add pear or apple juice. And it’s a little pricey but worth it.
Lately I seem to be having success in dealing with these tummy problems by drinking a cocktail made up of apple-cider-vinegar with apple or pear juice. This also doesn’t taste all that good but it seems to work. Try that one as many people say acv is good for many ailments.
thanks!
I made it into work today, only to feel that ominous rumbling. Awful day (though not as bad as i’ve been through in the past!) Thank-you so, so, so much for this! I’ve also read that probiotic tablets (the good kind) are a god send…
Great tips (the toilet one is hysterical, but friggin true!)
Nice blog! Have a great New Year!
Best,
Li
@LaLicenciada
@HerDeepThoughts
A recent problem with diarrhea caused me to have a severe electrolyte imbalance. Gatorade made things worse – way too many colours, chemicals etc. My Dr. suggested the electrolyte formula from the WHO (World Health Organization).
1 liter of water
8 tsps sugar
1 tsp salt (good quality mineralized salt is best – not iodized crappy table salt)
Of course this tastes bad. So I poured 1/2 the water in my kettle and boiled it and put in 2 tea bags – herbal tea – no caffeine. I use Tazo Passion Tea. Cool slightly and mix back into the water and sugar and salt.
Only drink this cold . . . it tastes awful when warm. Makes a big difference in balancing the gut after diarrhea or vomiting.
Wow, that does not sound fun at all. I hope you’re feeling better!
I actually posted a homemade gatorade recipe a while back as a hangover remedy (and meant to link to it in this post). It’s very much like the one you posted, only using some freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, as well as a bit of potassium supplement (if you have it).
I like the idea of the tea, though. Thanks for the suggestions!
Juiced ginger and carrots also help the homemade gatorade taste better!
If there is one thing in this life I hate it would be to ralph… err, just thinking about it makes me cringe. I do have a suggestion, CB mentioned using a warm towel for cramps, which is a splendid idea but I got a way to trump the towel and get a deep soothing warm for much longer. I swear by my rice compact, its a cotton bag I whipped up out of fabric scraps and filled with plain, uncooked white rice. Pop this sucker in the microwave for like 2 mins ( time depends on how warm you like it or how big the rice pack is) and Ive got a nice soothing heat pack that last for about 2 hours!
For an added bonus you can add dried lavender or chamomile to the rice mix. You can buy these rice pack at ritzy downtown shops for upwards of $20, but you are all Crunchy Ladies so save your money and make your own.
Oooh – I LOVE those warmed rice packs! My mom bought me this teddy bear that’s filled with rice and something else (beans maybe?). And I LOVE it.
The only problem is, I got rid of my microwave last year, so now I don’t know how to heat him up (don’t want to catch the house on fire with teddy).
I wonder if you could make one of the rice packs, wrap it in foil, and pop it in the oven on low to heat it up. Seems like that might prevent it from burning. Just make sure it’s SUPER wrapped up, though. Hmmm …
beans work and ground corn too,never tried them though. as for sticking it in the oven…you could always try:)
I’ve done that exact oven-warming-wrapped-in-foil trick with a rice pack. Haven’t had a microwave in over a decade…
Ugh! The Flylady says we should clean our toilets daily, b/c you never know when the barfing might come.
The diarrhea I get all the time. The barfing hardly ever and both times in recent memory I passed out from dehydration. The last time I was at the ER on a saline drip overnight. I say don’t stop drinking. Ever. Little bits at a time.
Holy wow. I’ve never had it so bad I’ve needed to go to the hospital. That does NOT sound like fun.
(Gah, I can’t believe the things I admit here, but) I have a SUPER sensitive gag reflex, so the moment anything starts to pretend like it’s going to come back up, it usually does.
Stinks, though, because then when I try to brush my tongue after I throw up, I trigger the reflex again and just end up throwing up more. It’s a neverending cycle of yuck.
After having the stomach flu once, I totally feel for anyone going through that particular torture. Yuck. It is hands-down the absolute worst! I am SO sorry you both had to endure that. All your tips sound like really good ones. I’m going to look for the astragalus root (and practice pronouncing it). A friend of mine swears by Chinese hot and sour soup when his tummy gets woozy, but I haven’t tried it myself (as a cure anyway).
As soon as I start to hear that the seasonal sickies are starting, I hit the vitamins and wash my hands, wash my hands, wash my hands. Normally I’m not obsessive about it but when the bad bugs are about… I am ultra-aware of shopping cart handles, door knobs, etc.
Yeah – this one REALLY caught me off-guard. It’s been so crazy warm here in Colorado (in the 60s and 70s on a daily basis), it just didn’t even remotely seem like it should be time for the flu to start skipping around.
Balmy days can be deceiving, to be sure.
Maybe it was my sick for the year, though. I usually get the stomach flu only once in a season. Fingers crossed!
Homemade stock is the best for healing the stomach, because it not only has the vitamins and minerals, but when you make it at home you get the gelatin from the bones, which soothes and heals the lining of the stomach and intestines.
It’s easy too, especially if you use a crockpot. Just simmer bones for 4-24 hours with a little bit of salt and apple cider vinegar. You can also put in a few garlic cloves or a knob of ginger. I keep leftover bones from roasts and chicken meals in ziploc bags in the freezer and then when I have a good quantity or need stock I just dump them in and let them simmer. It’s great when you are not feeling well to have a pot of warm broth handy-just strain out a cup whenever you need it.
GREAT tip!
I have some stock bones I picked up at Whole Foods a few months ago in the freezer. You’ve inspired me to pull them out and make stock (to put back IN the freezer).
Thanks, lady!
That astragalus tip is awesome. We usually have some in the house in capsule form, but I like the soup idea better. Glad you’re feeling better!
It really is amazing how it lends zero taste to foods. Between that and the elderberry syrup I made last year, I didn’t get sick at all – until the spring. Something about those spring germs I can never quite get away from.
Anyway, I’m going to have to be on the look out for the capsules now, too. Great idea for the weeks I don’t feel like cooking anything major!
I hope your son didn’t get it too. Nothing is worse than trying to care for someone else when you’re sick yourself. Craig and I spent our last anniversary both with the stomach flu playing rock, paper, scissors who was going to tend to the kids with the stomach flu too. I didn’t think we were going to make it out of that one alive. I think I threw bananas at their door and told them to “fetch”. Glad you’re on the mend.
There’s nothing better than a sexy anniversary with the stomach flu. I made the mistake last night of eating mac and cheese FAR too soon. I felt hungry – ravenous – but once it was in there, my stomach was all, “Um, yeah. NO.”
So, even though the household missed out on my original round of vomiting, it got to enjoy the second round. Even the cats came in to appreciate my efforts.
Good times.
There are two homemade remedies in the house for general sickness. The first is the husband’s pre- and during-sickness hillbilly cure-all. Mix bourbon (or shine, if we have it), a whole lemon, a peppermint stick or two, and a sizable piece of ginger; bring it to a boil and steep a green or black teabag in it until strong. Drink it as hot as you can possibly stand it and curl up in a heavy blanket and good warm clothes. You’ll sleep for a day and a half and wake up feeling better. I’m not lying about a bit of this. The post-sickness remedy is mine – homemade Thai-style chicken soup, with homemade chicken stock. (Husband calls it Jello stock because I boil it so long I cook all the collagen out of the bones – which is good, because the collagen’s the good stuff.)
I’m glad you’re feeling better! Good crunchy vibes sending your way!
I think I want to try your husbands hillbilly cure-all even if I’m not sick!! That sounds really good!
I would probably enjoy it more if I didn’t associate it with being sick – kind of like orange juice (which that might just be me being weird). Works for insomnia too, I hear! 🙂
Haha! I’m with Stephanie on the hillbilly cure-all. Frankly, anything with the words “hillbilly” and “cure-all” in it has my attention immediately, even if moonshine wasn’t involved!
Also, I thought it was super fun you mentioned Thai chicken soup, ’cause I have a container of it in my fridge that I bought at one of the local “gourmet” catering shop-type places here. Sadly, I bought it earlier this week and couldn’t fathom eating it while I was sick … and now I’m afraid it’s not good anymore.
But the coincidence was fun, and I’ll have to get some more to put in the freezer … just in case the yucky sickness happens again this winter.
In case you’re interested, Leela over at She Simmers just put out a tutorial of sorts on tom kha gai (Thai coconut chicken soup). Personally, I think it’s awesome. Don’t know how it will do with freezing, though, due to the use of coconut cream.
As for the real true hillbilly cure-all recipe, you’ll have to ask my husband. The ingredients I listed are basics, but there are a couple other things that go in. I’m just usually too sick to be able to identify the other stuff. Oops.
I like peppermint tea when I’m sick. Helps with the nausea for me 🙂
Oooh. Peppermint tea! Forgot about that one. Thanks for the reminder!
My whole family is prone to the stomach stuff. We’ll throw up in a minute. Good times! Thanks for the tips, I’m on my way to the grocery store and will be picking up the ginger just in case. If no one gets sick, I’ve got some recipes I can use it with :D.
I used your peppermint oil tip when I had the flu the other week and it would open my head up like mentholatum on steroids. I swear by it now!
Hope you’re doing well!
Woohoo, stranger! I’m SO happy to see you here! I cannot tell you how much I’ve missed your pretty face.
Ginger’s the bomb, yo. I’m actually getting ready to make a late-night carrot-ginger soup.
Now, come back. FOREVER.
Hope you are on the mend. Yuck. The flu stinks. I did stock up on honey, elderberry, etc as mentioned in one of your posts a few weeks back. I’m on this one too! Thanks for the 411!
Woot! I hope you make the elderberry syrup. It is super duper yum.
I made the mistake of thinking I was all better yesterday afternoon and ate homemade mac and cheese. Not a good idea. Relapse city.
Feeling SO much better today, though. Yay!