Cold season strikes again

OK, so catching a cold isn't exactly news. We all go through it, and I've had a zillion in my life for sure. For the last 5+ years though, each cold has ended in sinusitis, and for the last 2 years, with a-fib. Not fun.

Now, the a-fib went away when I got antibiotics. But in the latest iteration, it appears that it was the prednisone, not the antibiotics, that got rid of the a-fib. Plus a big dose of Vit C, courtesy of Jamba Juice (I dunno, I just got a craving for fresh squeezed OJ and chug-a-lugged a couple of quarts of the stuff).

So, here I am again, another cold, which might go into sinusitis and a-fib. Frankly I don't want either one. It's decidedly a virus at this point ... I even know who I caught it from ... but I also know the history. So. What to do?

Here is my plan:

1. 2 cloves of fresh garlic daily. It does seem to be a potent anti-viral. And, I just love garlic.

2. Don't forget the Vit C in the morning! And I got some extra fresh-squeezed OJ for dinner.

3. Heat pad. I'm living with that puppy. Mainly on my chest, neck, and nose. Wherever it is congested. This seems to do wonders, until I stop doing it. I mean, you need to do it almost non-stop. And avoid cold air.

4. Even more than usual: avoid iron. Iron feeds all the baddies, in my theory. So I'm going for white rice, beans, greens. And tea.

Esp. green tea. Green tea seems to be big on iron chelation, even from the brain.

The good news is, so far: Yep, I feel miserable. But not as miserable as last time. No heart issues at all. I did just start to get that "sickly" feeling when I went to run errands, but it went away when I went back on my trusty heat pad.

The interesting thing about green tea is, when I was on that one particular cruise, I felt *really good*. I've tried to parse that every since. While there, I felt really good, even though I was psychologically miserable, not getting exercise, no sunshine. I lost weight too. After I got back, I got a bad cold and got a-fib. But that was after I got back. During the cruise, I had a very limited diet, due to the fact they didn't have the GF menu down really. So I lived on sushi, poke (raw fish salad), greens, Phad Thai, and loads of jasmine green tea.

I thought maybe the a-fib had to do with the green tea. But maybe not. Maybe the afib was just a random cold (from being packed with 1,000 other people in a floating iron can ...). But the feeling good part, might have had to do with all that tea. The coffee on the boat was just not up to Seattle standards, and I had my own great tea stash. So I could have great tea all day long, anywhere I could find a hot water tap.

I have also surmised that it might have something to do with the stainless cups I drank all that tea from ... both nickle and manganese can be problematic, and both are in stainless, and leach from stainless, esp. the cheap stuff probably. I don't use stainless much these days, just in case.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16470637

 Tea flavonoids (catechins) have been reported to possess divalent metal chelating, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities, to penetrate the brain barrier and to protect neuronal death in a wide array of cellular and animal models of neurological diseases. This review aims to shed light on the multipharmacological neuroprotective activities of green tea catechins with special emphasis on their brain-permeable, nontoxic, transitional metal (iron and copper)-chelatable/radical scavenger properties.