Sore Throat Fighter: Cayenne Pepper!

Well, there’s been no progress on my pantry doors, because I’ve had a cold all weekend. Booo!

The worst part about a cold for me (besides everything of course) is the accompanying sore throat. It feels terrible and I never know what to do about it. I take whatever vitamins we have in the house (Airborne, Emergen-C), ibuprofen for pain, and Sudafed to help dry up my nose and reduce the drainage into my throat which aggravates the stupid sore throat, but my throat is always so itchy and terrible, even with the ibuprofen. My mom tells me to gargle warm salt water, but that always sounds gross.

But this weekend, I was desperate. So I Googled for advice, and came across this site which recommended a cayenne pepper gargle and/or a cayenne pepper and salt water gargle. Well, since half of that combination was what my mom recommended, I thought I’d try it.

I put less than a measuring cup full of warm water in a glass (just eyeballed it), then mixed in about a half a teaspoon (just from my silverware set, not a measuring teaspoon) of salt, and just a tip of the teaspoon’s worth of cayenne pepper. I gargled then swooshed and rinsed with cold water, then gargled and rinsed again till the glass was empty. (The cayenne really wasn’t too hot at all, but it was better when I took a nice cool rinse in between gargles!)  The site suggested doing this every 15 minutes, which I didn’t. I did my first 2 gargles about 15 min apart, then gargled in an hour, then in a few hours.

Let me tell you, it really helped!! I could still feel my throat was swollen, or icky, or whatever, but the majority of the terrible scratchiness was gone! I kept up the ibuprofen and Sudafed (I could really tell when the Sudafed was wearing off, because I’d start getting that burning drainage into my already sore-ish throat), but those cayenne and salt water gargles really kept the pain to a minimum, and made my days not so terrible! I’m so happy to have found this home remedy! Try it next time you’ve got a sore throat!

Do you have any tried and true DIY/home remedies for cold-related symptoms?