How to Cure a Sore Throat Naturally

How to Cure a Sore Throat Naturally

A sore throat is often the first symptom of a winter-time assault on your health like a cold or the flu. It can also be from overuse — like cheering yourself hoarse at an exciting football match.

At least with that kind of a sore throat, you know what caused it. But if you come down with one during the colds-and-flu season, and it becomes severe, you may have a serious bacterial infection called 'strep throat' — i.e. an infection caused by streptococci bacteria.

While strep throat is nowhere nearly as common as it was many years ago, enough cases do turn up to make what kind of a sore throat you have important to determine. If it is a strep throat, you'll want to be treated by a doctor as left untreated, it can lead to rheumatic fever. While only about 3 percent of untreated strep throat cases develop into this, those that do can leave their victims with a damaged heart and kidney disease.

A strep throat is very painful, It will be accompanied by chills and high fever (over 102℉ [38.9℃]). The appearance of a strep throat is somewhat different, too. You should use (or have someone use) a flashlight and a tongue depressor (a spoon will do) to examine your throat. If it's fiery red and has white patches here and there on the back of the throat and tonsils, it could be strep throat. Call the doctor. He or she will more than likely do two things after examining you: give you an injection of an antibiotic and take a swabbed sample of the fluid in your throat. This will be tested in a laboratory to determine what the infecting organism is. But the doctor will treat you as if it were strep throat because the lab report takes a few days.

If your sore throat doesn't have the telltale signs of strep throat, your worries aren't exactly over. It could be the flu, or it could be just another cold. The problem here is that both the common cold and the flu are caused by viruses. So what seems like a cold at first may develop into a full-fledged attack of flu. And while the cold may allow you to function more or less normally, the flu can make you feel as if you've been marched over by a division of soldiers. And it gets even more complicated because the flu sometimes sneaks up on you and doesn't produce any symptoms at first. But if you don't take care of yourself, you could end up with viral pneumonia.

(See also COLDS & FLU.)

Herbal remedies for a sore throat may do you more good gargles. The latter contains alcohol and a host of other chemicals you can be sure didn't grow on the end of a branch or a stalk. The herbs most valued for use as a gargle or tea to ease the pain of a sore throat are sage (especially red sage), eucalyptus, horehound, fenugreek, and marshmallow. Don't skimp on the honey when drinking these teas for a sore throat.