This winter has been pretty cold. For us, of course. We had a lot of rain. The temperature dropped to low thirties in the morning. I know, you may have -40 outside and laugh at our Arizona winter. But for us it is definitely cold. We’re not used to wearing anything heavier than shorts and t-shirt. I even had to put on socks with my flip flops. That’s cold!

All jokes aside, that resulted into some waves of cold and flu in the community. I caught some of it too, and I had to deal with that. And today I will talk about one way of dealing with cough. And stuffy nose or sinus issues.

But first of all, here’s a disclaimer: I will not give any medical advice or recommend anything to be used instead of medical treatment. If you have cough, fever, don’t feel good – you need to see a doctor. Period. Case closed. What I will tell you can only be used if you already saw the doctor and know it is OK for you to do this. Is that clear for everybody? All right, let’s keep going.

When I was growing up, I was not a healthy kid. Common cold was too common for our family, and flu or pneumonia was not that uncommon either. And at that time, in 1970’s, we did not really have much, so folk medicine was very popular. We used a lot of herb, physical therapy, etc. And it was recommended by doctors.

One thing my mom used was inhaling. I would sit by the pot with hot potato, she would cover me with a blanket and let me breathe that steam. Or we would use a water kettle. Boil the water, take the kettle off the stove, wrap the spout with a paper to make it longer to avoid burning, put some baking soda in the water, and then sit next to it and inhale the steam. And that really helped.

Fortunately, we don’t have to use potatoes or a kettle any more. This great ancient method was implemented in a form of a very convenient steam inhaler you can buy. All you do is pour water inside, put some nicely smelling vapor pad that comes with it and inhale.

The reason I’m talking about inhaler today is that I got some cold issues over holidays. Some nights I even had hard time falling asleep even after taking over the counter cough medication. One morning I woke up before 5 A.M. having dry cough every 20 seconds. And I couldn’t stop it. Not a good feeling.

That was when I remembered I had an inhaler. I took it out, and within 5 minutes I was sitting and breathing hot steam. And after 15 minutes I felt much, I mean much better. That dry scratchy feeling in my throat was gone.

Keep in mind, that it warms up nose and sinuses as well. So my nose starts running like crazy while I’m doing it, and stops almost immediately after I’m done. Therefore I keep some tissue next to me.

There’s one more method that I think may work better than steam inhaler. That is Russian steam sauna, called PARNAYA. People say it helps to get rid of cold, clean up the nose, throat, sinuses, and get rid of any arthritis pain in the body. But if you don’t have steam sauna close to you, steam inhaler may do.

I thought I might share this in case someone has a similar situation. I hope you won’t need it, but for those who has to deal with cough and stuffy nose like I had to this winter, here’s a link for you: