I've had a few weeks of feeling a bit run down. Not usually one to let pains and colds floor me, this time I seem to have been in a little defeatest mode. I am feeling a bit better now and on the mend so I wanted to share what I have done to remedy my ailments.

It all started with a pain in my arm that I treated with my homemade turmeric and black pepper paste. You can read about that here if you are interested. Once the pain from that subsided, I then woke up last Tuesday with the most horrendous neck pain I think I have ever experienced.

Fortunately, I have friends living locally who are quite well versed in natural remedies. So I phoned my dear friend @queenoftheworld and asked her if she knew of anything that would help my pain in the neck. That evening she came to my house to do a Moxa Treatment.

Whilst on the phone we had discussed whether sitting around in the cold at the Bandstand on Sunday had triggered my muscles into a kind of hypertension, Ruth asked me if I was feeling cold still and strangely I just couldn't warm up. She is very well versed in Chi balancing and understands how the meridians in our body need to be in balance for our Chi to flow. (Did I get that right). It's new territory to me and I love trying out alternative remedies and therapies. Please correct me if I understood that wrong though.

So in she came, armed with a wooden box similar to the one pictured below. I lay down on my sofa, while my beautiful friend filled up the box with Moxa and lit it up. She closed the box and covered it with, what she insisted was an old shirt (although it was a really cool old shirt and I feel a little bad about this). The box was then placed over my belly button and I just had to relax and lay there while it warmed up my body as it smoked its way inside the box.

Image Credit

What is Moxa I hear you say?

Moxa is the fluffy underside of the Mugwort plant leaves. It is known for its use in Chinese medicine to treat pain and congestion, as a way of promoting circulation and provides an anesthetic effect. The smoke smell is strong and lingers around , but its a pleasant smell.It almost smells slightly like Sage but @queenoftheworld thinks it smells a little like cannabis but not quite as strong. It left a pleasant odor in my living room for a couple of days and blended well with my Nag Champa incense.

I felt really warm and relaxed following the treatment and it seemed to help ease the pain in my neck somewhat. The point of this treatment was to release the cold from my body to balance the energy flow for my body to heal more quickly. I am so grateful for the treatment and it was lovely to have some company that evening too.

It took until about Friday before the pain in my neck went away and then I woke up Saturday morning thinking I had obtained a hangover from one glass of wine.

Now don't get me wrong, I am a lightweight and don't drink alcohol very often. Normally about twice or three times a year if I really push the boat and I am not a fan of its effects, but do feel the effects of a hangover were certainly not justified on this occasion.

As it turns out it wasn't a hangover after all...

The heady feeling I had was followed by sneezing and then my nose became rather stuffed up. I was more sleepy than usual and by yesterday all I wanted to do was rest. My boys had other plans so the rest had to wait until they went to bed.

So I followed suit about thirty minutes after they were settled and slept like a baby until around 4 am. Then drifted off until a more acceptable hour to wake up.

This morning I felt much less groggy but am still feeling the effects of the head cold. So I decided to make some lemon, ginger and honey tea.

Being vegan, I was really undecided whether this was the right thing to do. Fortunately, the deli in town stocks Local Honey and the owner tells me the bees are treated amazingly and the honey is harvested without too much disruption to the hive.

The tea is a simple preparation of

sliced ginger, about one thumb tip size,
1 quarter of lemon and one teaspoon of honey.
Steep in boiling water for about 10 mins,
add the honey after steeping the lemon and ginger first so as not to lose the benefits of the honey to the heat of the boiling water.

Natural Medicine

The vitamin c in lemon helps build up immunity, the ginger aside from helping with digestion, is rich in antioxidants too. Combine that with the honey, which also had little bits of propolis in it adding to the anti-viral, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory properties that make this simple tea such an effective remedy for coughs and colds. Here is a study about propolis it if you would like to know more.

I am certainly feeling much better and the combination of the alternative medicines and a good night's sleep are certainly helping. Hopefully this will be the last of my health issues for a while, but I guess if not, I will have something to write about.