Natural Remedies and Kicking a Cold

My husband's super power is that he can eat a whole clove of raw garlic, as well as raw onions and radishes. I suppose it's because he is Russian and in addition to potatoes, they practically bathe in this kind of stuff. I'm almost not kidding. At the suggestion of my mother-in-law, I chopped up some garlic, wrapped it in a tissue, and put it in my ears in an effort to relieve my sore throat. I also ate a few pieces of raw garlic, which surprisingly did relieve the sore throat for a short period of time. The pro is that my husband thought I smelled delicious and my sore throat was gone the next day! The con is that my sore throat turned into a nasty cold.

Two days later, I couldn't breathe at all through my nose and the OTC stuff wasn't doing anything, so I checked out Earthclinic.com, where you can find a whole slew of natural remedies for everything from colds to UTI's to thyroid issues. The most popular cold remedy on there is Tomato Tea and while I was skeptical, I was also desperate. So I got a sauce pan and threw in some V8, lemon juice, chopped garlic, and a whole lot of hot sauce and heated it up over the stove. I should mention hot sauce is not my thing. Although a few years ago I had this crazy idea that I could condition myself to like spicy food by essentially eating more spicy food, it never actually worked. I did get to the point where I could tolerate basic Tobasco sauce, so that's what I used for my Tomato tea. It was hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, HOT! And even with all that hotness, nothing really happened, not even a brief clearing of the sinuses. I sadly attempted to sleep, stuffy nose still in tact.

The next day though, I felt a good 50% better! Was it the tomato tea or just the natural progression of my body kicking a cold? I don't really know, but you can bet I'll be eating garlic and drinking a tomato brew next time I catch a cold.

Do you have any favorite natural remedies? If so, what are they?