Fever and Nausea

Quell Nausea -

Try frozen ginger chips. First, infuse fresh ginger in hot water. Strain, then freeze the concoction in ice cube trays. Crush the cubes and suck the icy chips throughout the day to provide your tummy with a steady soothing dribble. Ginger's anti-nausea properties are particularly effective during pregnancy or after surgery.

–Expert: Eric Yarnell, ND, faculty member of the department of botanical medicine at Bastyr University

Ginger, be it in the form of ginger ale, tea, or even raw, is almost a guarantee to help stop nausea in its tracks. Ginger promotes the secretion of various digestive juices/enzymes that help neutralize stomach acid. It also contains phenols that relax stomach muscles and act similar to a sedative on irritated stomach tissue, reducing over activity of the stomach. At the same time, the phenols are helping your intestine move digested food and toxins through your system quicker, getting any bad stuff that may be making you feel ill pass faster. You can take it in capsule form, nibble the root raw, or grate some into a soothing soup. Personally, if it’s possible, I find fresh tea or ginger ale (the real stuff) to be the best way to calm an upset stomach.

  If making tea you will need…

  - 1 ginger root, 2 inches

  -Honey (optional)

  -A peeler or sharp knife

  -2-3 cups of water

  -Wax paper

  -A cutting board

Directions

Wash your ginger root well and then peel. Slice it into small pieces, cover with wax paper, and crush it or make your pieces extra small. Boil 2-3 cups of water over medium high heat and then add your ginger, letting it boil for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and strain if you like, or pour everything into your mug. Add honey if you like. Sip slowly and relax.

  

If your nausea is caused by something like the stomach flu or food poisoning, follow the BRAT diet to keep it under control. It is comprised of:

-Bananas

-Rice

-Applesauce (without sugar)

-Toast

It has a little less ring to it, but you can do the BRATPP diet, which is adding on:

-Pasta (lightly buttered or with a little oil)

-Potatoes (avoid the steak or gravy)

Make milk toast

Bland foods can help tame your tummy, and 2 that are particularly favored are milk and bread. Bread absorbs excess acid, while milk coats your stomach, which is also why they are generally recommended when you something like aspirin, which can hurt an empty stomach. However, you do not want to drink milk straight, as dairy alone can cause upset, so make milk toast for a happy medium. Do NOT make this if you have gastroenteritis (the stomach flu) which reacts poorly to dairy. Milk toast helps the most when the stomach is irritated from over-the-counter pain meds.

  You will need…

  -1 cup of milk

  -1 piece of toast

  -unsalted butter

Directions

Heat up 1 cup of milk until it’s hot, but not boiling, and then pour into a cereal bowl, or one similar. Toast a piece of bread, and spread a tiny bit of unsalted butter on it. Crumble the toast into the milk, and eat slowly.

Stretch

Upper back and neck pain can set off reoccurring bouts of nausea. In this case, the nausea is your bodies’ way of reacting to the discomfort in your back or neck. Try doing some simple neck and back stretches to release the tension causing the queasiness.

 A back exercise: Try lying on a flat, solid surface (aka the floor.) Put down a yoga mat or something similar if you like. Lie like you’re about to do a push-up but instead of lifting up your whole mid-section, only lift up your upper body. Let your back arch and stretch as you tilt your head back as far as possible, the underneath of your chin facing the ceiling.

 For neck exercise: Do not do actual neck rolls. Growing up playing rugby my coaches emphasized that when we stretched out in warm up rolling your neck around was not a good thing. It can pinch nerves, make you dizzy, and grind on disks. The vertebrae of your neck are not shaped for motion that follows a circular path, and overtime this hyperextension can have detrimental effects. Instead tip your head forward and touch your chin to your chest. Hold for 10-15 seconds. Follow this with tilting, not rolling, your head to left (like you’re trying to touch your ear to your shoulder) and hold for 10-15 seconds. Repeat on the right side.

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Stubborn Fever -

 Sip linden flower tea, which works in two ways: It stimulates the hypothalamus to better control your temperature, and it dilates blood vessels, inducing sweating. Steep 1 tablespoon of dried herb (available in health food stores) in a cup of hot water for 15 minutes, then sip. Drink three to four cups a day. If you still run hot after a day of sipping tea, seek medical attention.

 For a high fever (above 102°F), take a tepid bath, which simply cools the body to match the water temperature. Bathe until your temperature decreases to 101° to 102°F, then sip linden flower tea to lower it even more.

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