Home remedies · Throat, pharynx & cough
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
A bowl of hot, not boiling water, a towel over the head, breathe calmly for 10 minutes, two to three times a day. A warm shower with the door closed does the same.
Moist warmth loosens thick secretions and makes the nose freer for a while.
The cold lasts just as long; this is about getting through it, not about duration.
Not with boiling water and not with small children — tipped bowls are a common cause of scalds. With asthma, steam can irritate.
Get seen at once: severe one-sided pain with high fever, trouble swallowing your own saliva, a muffled voice or breathlessness. Likewise hoarseness lasting beyond three weeks, and coughing blood. In children also drooling and sitting with the chin pushed forward.