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.
Let a teaspoon of honey dissolve slowly in the mouth, especially before bed with a cough; do not drink afterwards.
The thick film settles over the irritated lining and calms the urge to cough. For night-time cough in children over one, it is one of the few well-studied home remedies.
It does not fight germs and does not help with a cough from deep in the lungs.
Never in the first year of life — honey can contain spores dangerous to infants. This also applies to cooked honey in food.
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.