Flu season prevention tips:

**canadian gardener** · 10-16-2004, 02:19 PM

Handwashing however you manage it. Teach your kids to wash after the toilet, after touching their nose (sneezing, picking, blowing), touching pets (turtles are especially bad for salmonella but all pets harbour problem germs) and WHENEVER THEY COME IN THE HOUSE FROM ELSEWHERE. the mall, whatever. Esp after the mall!

Sing the ABC song while scrubbing with soap and water (or waterless stuff) and use a paper towel to dry off AND shut the taps off and open the bathroom door.

School teachers might want to consider teaching this as basic hygiene that the kids might not otherwise learn at home even if they should.

Schools and malls would really help if they would PROP THE BATHROOM DOORS OPEN so people won't re infect their now clean hands.

Use your shirtail to open doorknobs, doors in ALL public places.

Sneeze into a hanky or your shirt tail or shoulder to absorb the spray particles.

When flushing a toilet keep the lid down or back away from it as you flush to avoid inhaling the fine aerosol of spray.

Regular bleaching and disinfection of surfaces such as taps, fridge handles, phones doorknobs and TV remotes (and game boy equipment).

The flu virus can live on surfaces for quite a while.

CLEAN OFF SHOPPPING CART HANDLES!

If you think you are coming down with it, then dab a drop of TEA TREE OIL on a Qtip and rub it up both nostrils to get as far up and back as you can, then Pinch and sniff to distribute it further. This attacks the replicating viruses and the stuff is anti viral, as well as anti fungal and anti septic.

Repeat 3 to 4 times daily till you either don't feel it coming on anymore or till the cold is easing up. (couple of days only usually)

This is my third year of using it, and I'm asthmatic, the colds usually go right to my lungs. I've managed to keep the colds very mild or avoid coming down with them altogether. Trick is to get it early.

I suspect this may help with the flu virus too. Not the Norwalk though (intestinal flu as it's commonly known).

Rest, fresh air, lots of veggies

AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE AVOID SUGAR! It has been lab tested to reduce your immune response by about 60% for over 6 hours after as small as a tsp of sugar or honey. Please avoid it. This one thing will prevent more trouble than a truckload of echinacea (which is also a good thing)

STAY OUT OF CROWDS as MUCH AS POSSIBLE

DON'T EAT IN RESTAURANTS or FAST FOOD JOINTS

**canadian gardener** · 10-16-2004, 02:19 PM

http://www.healthyhomecare.com/home.shtml

has a number of good bits of how to disinfect kind of info. Use bleach.

here is their table of bleach solutions to make for each purpose: http://www.healthyhomecare.com/clean...surfaces.shtml

**Dixie** · 10-16-2004, 02:32 PM

Thanks so much, Margery. I had no idea that sugar would reduce your immune response.

Is tree tea oil widely available? I want to try it. TIA

**Ellise** · 10-16-2004, 03:55 PM

Thanks this is really useful info.

**guest2** · 10-16-2004, 09:48 PM

Thanks Margery. I'm going to back off the candy bars and put tea tree oil up my nose!

**dz_blonde_girl** · 10-17-2004, 09:49 AM

Tea Tree Oil is fabulous! It works great on chigger and mosquito bites! Add a few drops to your kids' shampoo to prevent lice!

I always use a clean dry paper towel to open the door of public restrooms.

**QuilterMom** · 10-17-2004, 09:50 AM

Thank you Margery!

Dixie - Is there a health food store near you? A lot of them offer the oils. I can suggest one you contact in my hometown, but I know that's not all that close for you.

**dz_blonde_girl** · 10-17-2004, 09:50 AM

Oh, you should be able to buy Tea Tree Oil at any vitamin store, like GNC or Vitamin World.

**Dixie** · 10-17-2004, 10:41 AM

Thanks, Quilter Mom and Karen.
Yes, Quiltermom, we have a health food store here, now. I'll call and see if they carry it.

My 2 youngest dsons are sick right now, it may be too late for it this time, but I want to be ready next time we're sick.

**canadian gardener** · 10-17-2004, 11:03 AM

Dixie, sorry just coming back on this, yes it will help your kids get over the cold quicker too. My kids don't always get it started soon enough, and over the past three years doing this, my experience is that even if you start late, it helps clear up the colds and any sinus infection or post nasal drip that causes further troubles.

I get my tea tree oil at the supermarket in the vitamin section, and I know Walmart has it in theirs too.

Ds just got up this morning asking for the tea tree oil, he has a cut on his hand that is getting infected, and it does that job beautifully.

It's like the Australians say, it's a first aid kit in a bottle. Love that stuff!

**canadian gardener** · 10-17-2004, 11:03 AM

May I suggest 2 more little germ killing hints?

#1: use your dishwasher if you have one. They save on hot water (energy saving and water saving) and families with one have fewer "bugs".

#2: use a HOT water wash, cold rinse on all your laundry (except the delicate stuff).

Doing this helps to kill off germs on underwear, sheets, towels and dishcloths that tend to travel onto ALL the rest of the wash. Warm water doesn't kill, and unless you use bleach, it will actually encourage bacterial growth.

Dryers DON'T acheive hot enough for long enough to kill germs.

And Bleach alone won't touch spore forming bacteria and parasite eggs (pin worms etc). They go thru a bleach wash untouched. Heat is the ONLY thing to kill those nasties.

LICE AND FLEAS eggs ARE THE SAME. HEAT will KILL them, but the eggs of those critters have a waxy coating that protects them from bleach. Dryer heat alone is not enough.

SUNLIGHT will kill germs though so if you hang your wash on sunny days, you will kill off the worst germs. Cloudy days don't kill a thing, even if the wash dries out.

I know I sound like a bit of a crackpot on this, but I noticed the difference in our family when I took the advice of a school nurse who told me that since people started using warm and cold water washes (even with dryer heat) that the spread of lice in the schools mushroomed. After I took to routinely washing in hot water we had no further lice episodes in spite of several epidemics.

When I read The Secret Life of Germs by that Oprah show biologist, his book says the same thing.

**guest2** · 10-17-2004, 12:24 PM

Thanks for the additional tips Margery. All the wash (except for the colors) will be done in hot water this week to help prevent anyone else from getting my cold.

**canadian gardener** · 10-17-2004, 01:06 PM

Hope you feel better soon, colds are nasty.

One more tip before heading out to church this morning:

Pick your shopping cart from the far end of the parking lot or wherever there is little turnover of the carts.

Why?

Because wind and rain, snow, cold, and sunlight all work to cleanse and disinfect that cart handle and the cart itself. Few bugs from chicken blood or a kid with a runny nose and snotty little hands will survive a few hours out in the weather.

If you make it a simple habit to just do that one thing, it will greatly help reduce your chances of picking something up from the last toddler who sat in the cart or the last package of leaky chicken wrappings.

If you do pick up one in the store, then it pays to give the handle a quick wipe with an alcohol wipe or some Purell or some other wipe. Make your own by keeping a bottle of rubbing alcohol along with a box of Kleenex in the car.

**mrsteddybear** · 10-22-2004, 12:28 AM

Great tips! Tea Tree Oil is on my list to be picked up at Wal-Mart.

**canadian gardener** · 10-01-2005, 12:44 AM

It's flu and cold season again.

All the precious little kids and college kids are exchanging their viruses and the colds and flus of the season (all the fashionable virus LOL)

are making their way around the community.

Time to review things we can do to prevent the spread. The biggest being handwashing.

Or as a sign over the sink at work that I loved put it:

HANDS ARE NOT WATER SOLUBLE!

I loved that sign.