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.
Half a teaspoon of salt in 250 ml of warm water, gargle for 30 seconds, spit out, three to four times a day.
Salt draws water out of the swollen lining and rinses secretions away — the throat feels freer for a while.
It does not shorten a throat infection and does not replace assessment with high fever or one-sided pain.
Not for children who cannot yet reliably gargle and spit — usually under six.
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.