Stomach flu is a viral infection of the stomach mucosa and intestinal mucosa by viral agents, most probably rotavirus, norovirus, adenovirus and astrovirus.

Stomach flu is a disease with annoying symptoms which could be aggressive in some people, the most common presentation are vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever.

Diarrhea and Vomiting are the most unpleasant symptoms. They prevent you from going outside, holding any food, getting any nutrition or fluids. Although, this is how your body expels the virus from your digestive system.

Dehydration and electrolytic imbalance are severe complications that are likely to happen due to the vomiting and diarrhea.

You should drink A LOT of fluid during the first 24 hour of stomach flu and you need to rest your stomach from solid complex food like fats and proteins. Also avoid dairy products, caffeine and alcohol. When your stomach is better you could eat simple food like toasts, white rice, apples and bananas. And when you recover you may eat meat and other complex food.

The best way to replenish the fluid loss is to drink a lot of diluted healthy juices, which give you vitamins and minerals and rest your stomach. I know, anything per mouth is going out to the bathroom within 15 minutes, but you need to drink fluid and if your vomiting is severe and persistent preventing you from having enough fluid you may go to the hospital so the doctors give you intravenous fluids.

Chamomile tea: helps is the first day when the stomach is irritable and nothing staying in it, chamomile tea has anti-inflammatory properties soothe the stomach mucosa, also chamomile tea has smooth muscle relaxant effect decreasing abdominal cramps. And it helps with the abdominal distention.

Anise tea: anise is a very useful herb during the first day; it calms the stomach and has little sedative effect. Anise tea helps with abdominal symptoms such as bloating, gases and flatulence.

Salt: it’s important to replace the loss from vomiting and prevent electrolytic imbalance.

Mint leaves tea: decreases nausea and it has soothing effect on stomach and sedative effect. The Greek use it for curing hiccup and the roman use it to help with indigestion.

Banana: is loaded with Magnesium and Potassium. Those electrolytes are very important to maintain different body functions. Besides preventing electrolytes imbalance, banana also stops diarrhea.

Rice bran, rice and rice cereals: Rice proved to have major role in treating diarrhea.

Here is one easy recipe : boil rice grain in a large pot using double the ordinary amount of water. Separate this water by using strainer.

You can add some salts and drink this water four times per day as it is or you can add some other useful ingredient.

Add some mashed banana or apples to the rice water, also you can add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon or ginger. Banana and apples raise the nutritional value of the rice water. Also they provide important minerals, electrolytes and Vitamins. Cinnamons and Ginger have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects and help in prompting the immune system generally.

Those were some homemade flu remedies that may help you getting over the flu and getting back to your normal life style.

Be well

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Stomach flu is infection of the stomach and intestine by virus. The accurate name is gastroenteritis. It’s called stomach flu although the causing virus is not influenza. Stomach flu is one of the disturbing diseases that may affect anyone. It affects children more often but it could happen in adults causing more severe symptoms. Actually it’s more like hell when it occurs in adults.

Viruses causing gastroenteritis are: norovirus, rotaviruses, adenoviruses and astrovirus

Stomach flu symptoms include Nausea, Vomiting and Diarrhea, Low grade fever, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and cramps, headache and generally feeling very bad.

Stomach flu like other viral diseases doesn’t have a medication to cure, only to help with the symptoms until it passes. Luckily it’s self limiting disease. Anti bacterial agent aren’t useful in treating stomach flu, actually they kill the useful intestinal Bactria (flora) and that cause more abdominal cramps and pain.

First thing to do when you get stomach flu is to go to your doctor. He/she will prescribe some medication that will help with the symptoms like antispasmodic drugs which decreases stomach cramps, antiemetic drugs which help with the nausea and the vomiting and Analgesic and antipyretic drugs like acetaminophen which is better than non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (Ibuprofen and aspirin) as acetaminophen doesn’t irritate the stomach. Your doctor also will run some tests to exclude other serious diseases with the same presentations.

Severe cases of stomach flu in children or in adult should be treated in hospitals to prevent deterioration of general condition and prevent development of serious complication.

The most important thing you should guard against is dehydration. Dehydration is the first complication that may happens during stomach flu due to excessive fluid loss because of repeated vomiting and diarrhea. Symptoms of dehydration are thirsty, dizziness, decreased tears and other body secretions; urine is concentrated (dark yellow, little amount). Dehydration may be mild and treated by oral fluid intake, and may be severe and need intravenous fluid administration. Severe Vomiting may cause electrolytes imbalance in addition to dehydration. Dehydration and electrolytes imbalance may affect Kidney and heart functions. Dehydration is more dangerous complication in infants.

For infants and toddlers breast feeding infants shouldn’t stop it as breast milk provides rehydration, beneficial proteins as immunoglobulin and soothes the stomach. Fluid replacement should be done by Oral Rehydration Therapy solutions ORT which contain fluid and electrolytes. Mother should start ORT once the infant has established vomiting or diarrhea and even before developing sign and symptoms of dehydration.

The best thing to do is to wait the nature takes its course and trying to improve your condition by listening to your doctor direction and try our natural stomach flu remedies.

Regarding Gastroenteritis prevention is better that treatment, to prevent stomach flu personal hygiene is the very important, careful hand washing before eating and after using bathroom. Use chlorine based bleaches to clean surfaces and clothes. Avoid eating food and drink that you don’t grantee its source. Vaccination against rotaviruses are certificated now, and proved to decrease Gastroenteritis in children caused by rotavirus in United States.

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Before you read this article you need to know that over the counter medications are still medications, have indications and side effects you need to be aware of. If you have a chronic medical condition  or if you are on prescribed medication you should consult your doctor before using any other medication as it may have effect on your condition or interfere with your medication drug action.

Over the counter medication used for fever and pain control:

• Paracetamol or acetaminophen: it has analgesic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory properties. It act centrally reducing the pain and the fever and it acts peripherally and limit the inflammatory process. Acetaminophen is preferable drug used in reducing fever and pain in children because of its limited side effects. Acute large dose of acetaminophen causes acute liver damage. Acetaminophen could cause acute liver damage in regular doses in some people. Acetaminophen is metabolized in liver so Alcoholics and patient with chronic liver disease are advised not to use acetaminophen as analgesic as alcohol reduce the rate of acetaminophen metabolism increasing the accumulation of toxic metabolites.
• Aspirin and other non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAID) such as ibuprofens: They are drugs acting as anti inflammatory agents, analgesics and antipyretics, they are widely used as pain relievers. Although aspirin should not be used to treat sick feverish children with unknown infection as the combination of aspirin and viral infection is children may cause severe condition called Reye’s syndrome (rare side effect). Chronic abuse of NSAID especially in women could cause end stage renal failure due to nephro-toxicity.

Over the counter medications used for cough and other lung symptoms:

• Mucolytics and Expectorants:  they are drug used in patient suffering from dry painful cough. They dissolve the mucous lining the air way causing its thinning and make it easier to expel by cough.
• Cough suppressant: it is not advised to be used as cough clears the lung from the mucus secretions, viral bodies and inflammatory materials accumulated in the air ways. It is only advised at night if the cough is severe and prevents the patient from sleep.

Over the counter drug used for sore throats:

• Lozenges which contain local anesthetic agents make temporally relief. Also they come in the form of sprays and gargles.

Over the counter medications used for nasal symptoms:

• Decongestants: spray nasal decongestants act locally on the nasal blood vessels causing its constriction. That constriction prevents fluid collection and congestion. Spray nasal decongestants should not be used for more than three days as it may cause rebound congestion after stoppage. Oral nasal decongestants act generally on all small blood vessels with longer period of action those drugs aren’t safe for patient with high blood pressure, chronic heart diseases, diabetes mellitus, glaucoma and other diseases.
• Antihistaminic drugs: they decrease the congestion and the inflammatory response. They are used more in allergic patients. They have sedative side effect and shouldn’t be taken with other sedative drugs or alcohol. People with chronic bronchitis shouldn’t use antihistaminic drugs because they could case drying of mucus in the lungs and worsening cough and lung condition.

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When your body is infected by the flu virus, there are sequential steps that happen due to virus invasion of different body organs. First the virus is intruded to your body via inhalation and enters your blood circulation at the blood vessels of lungs.

When the virus is circulating in your blood it is called viremia and this is responsive for the initial rising of the temperature, overall aches, muscle aches and feeling of sickness before the onset of the usual cold symptoms (sneezing and coughing).

This period usually takes day and half or two days during which we get the sensation that we are going to catch a cold.

The best ways to deal with it are:

• Half a plenty of rest especially sleeping to boost your immune system.
• Drink a lot of fluids to prevent dehydration from the rising fever.
• Take over-the-counter analgesic.

This period is important and you want to prepare your body and immunity to fight the flu.

Then the virus goes to its direct organs. In this case they are the respiratory system organs. The virus is implanted in nose, throat mucosa first. And there the virus replicates and the immune system trying to prevent it by inducing an inflammatory response, causing the running nose and the scratching throat. Then the virus invades the lungs and the bronchial tree, causing productive cough and slight breathing difficulties. The sputum produced with viral infection usually colorless and of small amount. If your cough changed in nature, or the sputum become profuse and yellow or green, you would like to visit your doctor as it is probably a secondary bacterial infection.

To improve your symptoms during this period:

• Blow your nose regularly and gently. You are now very infectious to others blowing your nose regularly decrease number of virus bodies in your nose mucosa. Blowing your nose hardly could harm your ear so do it regularly and gently.
• Use nasal saline irrigation: cleans your nose from virus bodies and improve your nasal symptoms.
• You may use nasal decongested but don’t use it for more than 3 days and don’t use it if you are allergic without consulting your doctor.
• Breathe into steam water: you could add some herpes like ginger or some over-the-counter medication like tincture iodide. This mechanism acts like hospital nebulizer. It opens your air ways and hydrates its mucosal lining reducing the dry painful cough.
• Take a hot shower: its act like a sauna and the steams act like the point we discussed before.
• Drink hot fluid: that improves the scratchy throat and reduces the cough.

The flu, like a lot of viral diseases, doesn’t have a plenty of medical solutions and luckily it pass away within days or a week maximally. The symptoms of fever and congestion are the body way to fight it. Rest, healthy food and plenty of fluid help your body very much during this experience.

It is important to know when you should see your doctor; if the fever is elevated for more than 3 days, if you are experiencing difficulty of breathing and if the symptoms aren’t improving with time. If have a chronic disease like hypertension or any heart or lung disease you should consult your doctor at the first sign of flu.

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Although staying in home is quite boring, it is very important to stay warm and rested to help your body fighting the flu.

For a lot of people who have a busy carrier life, staying in home for a couple of days because of cold usually is a punishment. To improve your home staying/cold experience there are some fun healthy remedies you could enjoy with a book or with a favorite show:

Hot Ginger cinnamon tea:

1 teaspoon of ginger

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of honey (or as you like)

1 glass of hot milk

Ginger: Have antiviral properties, little sedative properties encouraging the rest needed and anti inflammatory properties which decrease the mucosal congestion of the throat. Ginger also has pain relieving, antiseptic and anti-oxidant properties.

Cinnamon: cinnamon has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Honey: honey contains multivitamins and antioxidants, along with antibacterial and antiseptic properties. It’s very helpful in flu especially to people suffering from asthma. There is a say my doctor always says it to me “you will never catch a cold if you take 1 big tablespoon of honey with half lemon juice every morning”

Hot chicken soup:

1 chicken

¾ liter of water

1 teaspoon of minced garlic

½ ounce of chopped bell pepper and chili pepper

1 moderate sized onion.

½ ounce of leeks

Chicken: contains proteins which are important in building immunoglobulins.

Bell pepper: contains vitamin C which boosts your immune system.

Chili pepper: help with the sinusitis and reduce mucosal congestion.

Garlic: contains antibacterial, antiviral and anti-fungal agents. Garlic also known as a very good immune stimulant.

Onion: is similar to garlic, also have antibacterial and anti septic properties.

Leeks: contains a lot of vitamins especially vitamin C, B6 and folic acid.

Garlic, Onion and leek can improve your immune system.

Hot chicken soup has proved to be very helpful with throat mucosal congestion, reduces the cough and improving breathing because It is proved to thin the mucus.

Fenugreek tea:

1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds boiled in ½ cup of water

5 teaspoons of sugarcane juice or sugarcane based molasses

½ glass of warm milk

1 gm of vanilla powder (for taste and smell enhancement)

Fenugreek: is very rich herpes which contains antioxidants anti bacterial and anti inflammatory agents. Fenugreek also has expectorant properties and improves the sore throat.

Sugarcane: it’s very popular juice here in Egypt. It has a lot of health benefits among them it improves the flu symptoms.

Warm milk: has a  soothing and little sedative effect which prompts the body rest.

Fruit salad:

Throw Couple of oranges, bananas, grape fruit, guava, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries and you will have a very rich plate, loaded with vitamins, antioxidants and other healthy elements and vitamins. You could also use honey as syrup and increase the overall health benefits.

Hot lemon and honey drink:

Don’t forget your mother traditional cure for influenza; it is ancient and still effective.

Yarrow tea:

Improve influenza symptoms due to its analgesic and anti inflammatory effects, also it is proven to be helpful with allergic diseases like asthma.

Bon Appetit !

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