Hello everyone!!  It has been raining all day today so thankfully, our rain water shortage has been temporarily solved.  The rainwater tank is almost half full and we have another full tank as back-up.  Phew!!  We are so pleased!!

Anyway, onto the subject of chili peppers…yesterday, was town day and it was a hectic run-around of seeing patients for the whole morning, meeting up with people for lunch and the usual  in-between hailing of passerbys and acquaintances.  Not to mention, the rushing around for supplies in between a packed day.  By the time I got home at 4pm, I was exhausted.  At this point, I started feeling lethargic and then it got worse because I started feeling sorry for myself.  One thing led to another and I developed a headache, sore throat and a low-grade fever.  I immediately recognised it as the beginnings of the ‘flu (or some sort of viral infection).  Gnome knew there was a problem when I reached over to the computer to write a Blog post and I simply couldn’t even muster up the energy to type out the WordPress address.   Gnome admonished me gently for being such an awful patient and told me to have a teaspoon of chili sauce, in a drink immediately.

I happened to have a glass of beer in front of me (therapeutic dosage to warm myself up of course…honest) so I stirred in a teaspoon of chili sauce and downed it.  As soon as I drunk it, it really hit the spot and the I felt an immediate release in my sinuses and head.  I felt so much better.

Gnome’s Medical Prescription: Beer

And one teaspoon of Chili sauce:

Culpeper describes this experience very nicely:

“…will so pierce the brain by flying up into the head through the nostrils, as to produce violent sneezings, and draw down abundance of thin rheum, forcing tears from the eyes…”

I went to bed soon after this, feeling nice and toasty.  And so today, I still feel tired from fighting off the ‘flu and my energy levels are considerably lower.  However, I have managed to keep the other symptoms at bay (fever, headache and cough) with a teaspoon of chili sauce in miso soup three times a day.  By no means is this an instant cure-all but it does cut short the length of an ailment and lessons the symptoms so it is worth doing.  I will probably continue this regime for the next 3 days at least.  I have noticed that with natural remedies, it is not usually a once off dosage but rather a course.

Also, Chilis have nutritional value which can aid in mounting a proper immune response: vitamin A, C, E, B6, Potassium and Manganese and Riboflavin.

It is still raining here in Toledo…yay!!  Have a Good Night everyone!!