Show must go... Performing When You're Sick?

A perfect storm of stress, coworkers coming in when sick, and concert prep. has left me with the flu the day before a major show.

I've taken the day off and am trying to pace myself, resting between practicing, keeping hot water boiling, drinking hot tea with honey, and several doses of zinc and Emergen-C vitamin drinks.

Does anyone have tips for healing fast to do a show when you're sick and unlike Pavarotti  have no stand-in?

The flu can be dangerous if you dont treat it with respect - So my first words are.. Put your health first!

Garlic, Ginger and Echinacea are my first remedies - You need to take a lot! You need to have your body so saturated in the stuff that it comes through your pores when you sweat - so strong its almost unbearably inedible... The down side ? well.. Provided you are a reasonable distance from the audience, they will probably be able to bear the smell.... The other problem is that garlic and ginger in large quantities can give you the runs.. If you are playing the theremin, well - ..... Perhaps going for standard analgesics to hide the major symptoms for a while is a "safer" short term solution - but they are not going to make you better - hiding the symptoms and over stretching yourself can risk your long-term health.

Echinacea in tincture form is best for faster results, and has no ill effects (no unpleasant odor)..

Then of course there is the old standard which works miracles, and nobody knows why! - Chicken soup!

My advise, from bitter expierience (not related to the flu) is that its just not worth it! - If I had paid attention to my physical state and not ignored symptoms which were screaming at me, I would not have done HO2010 - Yeah, I would have been even more in the s*it financially than I am now, and would have lost whatever little cred I have - But I might not have lost more than a year in illness, and probably more than 10 years of life expectancy.

Ok - Flu aint likely to have such dire concequences.. but it can have serious concequences if one is silly.

Best of luck! - Cause luck is all we have! ;-)

Fred.

When I have sign of flu like sympotms or cold, i start taking oil of Oregano and miraculously, it knocks it off! It tastes really bad, but wow...

do you havea juicer? Carrot, apple, orange with a healthy amount of real ginger will revive you for certain!

Great ideas, a couple I didn't know about.

Looking for some of that stuff now.

PS - Fred am so very glad you are feeling better and back with us!

"Fred am so very glad you are feeling better and back with us!"

Thanks John - so am I ! ;-)

Oh, and yes.. Amey is right.. Oregano is another great herb.

Thing to remember is that flu is a virus - Antibiotics dont help.. unless you get a simultaneous bacterial infection. Echinacea is actually anti-viral, and many other herbs (although this is disputed) also act against viruses or their effects.

Ones body has most of the tools to disable most viruses - including the ability to raise the bodys temperature making life harder for them. One big argument among doctors (particularly in critical care units) is about the role of temperature - some (and I am inclined to agree with them) believe that the doctrine of keeping temperature "normal" is misguided - that temperature should be allowed to go up, and kept just below dangerous levels - with care being taken over matters like hydration..

For minor ailments, keeping the temperature "normal" by excessive use paracetamol or ibuprofen or the like can actually prevent the body from using one of its most powerful weapons.

Fred.

>>> More medical burbling, lol ;-) - Really OT!

ps - my long-time-ago ex wife was studying medical herbalism for 5 years while we were together (she left me when she qualified, LOL - is now the most qualified herbalist in the U.K.) - I was working in medicine, and followed most of the stuff for the first few years - My somewhat critical stance on herbalism vanished as I saw so many simple obvious herbal remedies which worked, had sound scientific reasons for working, and which conventional medicine had ignored or stolen from to make inferior products... But one does need to be careful - Most of the "remedies" and "suppliments" one buys are a complete waste of money and utterly innefective.. You need to buy from someone like Baldwins, who supply medical herbalists - or to be seen by a QUALIFIED Medical Herbalist.

When in doubt, buy fresh herbs - Ginger and Garlic for example are simply not nearly as effective once they have been processed, Ecinacea is expensive - but only the highest quality stuff should be (it is from the root, so the plant must be harvested - some harvest the leaves, which is completely useless).

Then stuff like FRESH carrot juice - Only in the last few years have we started to discover why it may be so effective - There is a whole class of nutrients we have under-valued, these are the "soluble fibres" (as opposed to other fibres which are also important) - It seems that these (mainly found in berries and soft fruit) acually mop up toxic waste products - bind to these - and when excreted carry these toxins away - A long term (30 years) study of diabetics was completed recently, and the surprise result was that amongst people with the same general health and lifestyle parameters, one group had far less incidence of complications etc - The statistical deviation was huge, >50% - and the only slight difference iwas in their diet was - the group with the better health ate (mostly due to their location and culture) a far greater quantity of soluble fibre.

Introduction of soluble fibre to the diets of those with complications appears, on preliminary results, to be reversing the complications - after only a couple of years! - The most important area is with heart disease, where high soluble fibre intake seems to reduce the incidence (or recurrance) by more than 50%.. But it is still too early to be sure - not enough samples that these results are clearly above the noise threshold..

Whatever - It gives me an excuse to gorge on fruit, nuts and berries - Just wish I could get them on the NHS! ;-)

One thing which surprises me is the little public attention has been payed to any of this - I still get the journals from when I was in medicine (they havent been cancelled since they were subscribed for me by my employer, back in 1984 - would cost about £500 a year if I bought them, LOL) and these results are published in them (Particularly the journal of diabetologia) - But not a word in the press..

Hi Jason,

Just wondering how you got on, what you ended up doing, and how your feeling now.

Fred.