Summers are always hard for me - I have what I know know as hyperhidrosis (meaning I sweat a LOT on my FACE) - so I have had to compensate for that. (See my article on Super Sweating on associatedcontent.com!) 

I  always am dragging along iced tea to drink  - as the heat + my medications always make me so DRY.(And who wants to spend $1.00+ for 2 cents worth of tea in a cup? Altho sometimes I am caught & I rationalize it by saying I can re-use the cup, lid and straw - which I DO.)

And then my allergies have just popped up again!  Can;t figure it out by the pollen count - not so high - (I check them with a pollen count from claritin.com which I get via email) but there have also been fires up N. of us in Santa Barbara - we could see the haze over the city as we drove back in from the beach. So particulate matter is up (I looked that up on the internet, too.)

At any rate, I got sideswiped, blindsided by an unexpected allergy attack.  Sunday morning, despite taking Zyrtec, usually good for my eyes, my eyes felt as if they had sand in them - and I get 1/2 blind. too.  I used my drops - the Opcon-A (otc) and the Similisan and put stye/opthalmic vaseline on my inner eyelids (which get irritated) - (which the mds ever told me about!) and I also popped my homeopathic remedy - (I am using A. Vogel's Pollisan Allergy relief now, as it is cheaper than Allergyaide by B&T) and then I resorted to cold tea compresses on my eyes for about 45 min or so - when all else fails, I can get some relief from the cold tea!  Then I souped myself up with caffeine (I have a caffeinated spray with vitamins) and managed to get through the day, which included mental work -

Took Tavist when I got home - and things did abate - slept a lot.  Still problems on waking (Have an air cleaner & A/C in the bedroom) - Went into the living room & put on the aircleaner there + A/C -took Allertonic drops, + BioAllers drops for grass and tree + nettle drops (they use that a lot in Europe) .  Another dose of Tavist (1x per day & I got a deal on some at the 99 Cent Store - good til the end of the year) - Note:  I don't take the drops in the evening because they are stimulating.  P.S. I have also been using my Nasalcrom spray to alleviate my itching nose!

Big sigh - now, after an iced coffee, I am beginning to feel human - but what an effort!  The other alternative is to give up and take Benedryl, which knocks you out - and just go to BED.  I am also, of course, taking all my vitamins: B and C and E and fish oil and eyebright (has quertcin - good for allergies) and ginko and Cat's Claw and ginseng for the immune system - and calcium/magnesium/zinc and garlic and the CoQ10 I snagged cheap last week!!

I also took some Wellness formula by Source Naturals for their adaptogens!! (I don't want to get adrenal exhaustion from all this stress.) 

See why I spend a lot of $ at the health food store?  And then I go look for bargains elsewhere - or my bill at the health food store would be up in the $100s instead of 1/2 of that! (At the boat I used the multi vitamin sample I got from Naturemade - less to pack!)

You see, I masquerade as a fairly healthy person - but I have been taking precautions of one kind or another for YEARS - so long, I am almost used to it - but as I age - they just seem to pile on!

So this is my summer heat and allergy lament! 

• But even here you can think thrifty, no? 
• (fyi I got the eyebright, the ginseng and the Cat's Claw on SALE -
• and I get garlic at the 99 cent store and ginko, too.
• Got a couple of boxes of Tavist at 99 Cent Store
• Also scored 99 Cent coQ10 last week!
• Otherwise we look for 2 for one vitamin sales at the drug store 
• I get discounts on the Naturemade program - I like their CholestOff. 
• And I got a free 2-wk supply of multivitamins from Naturemade, too
• And I save coupons for eyedrops
• and got a free little sample of the new Bosch & Lomb Alaway drops - find it online. 
• And when I saw little  99 cent store trial bottles of the old Murine, which you can use all the time - I stocked up on a few to carry around in my makeup bags for emergencies! A whole bottle of that is about $4 now!)
• I even used to make my own boric acid solution by mixing a tsp. of pure powdered boric acid to about a pint of hot water & keeping it in the frig.  But then boric acid got expensive - so back to drops I went!)
• Oh, and I keep the swelling at the bottom of my eyes down by putting a dab of witch hazel (Dickinson's is really the best)on them under my daily eyecream (& I lubricate liberally when my eyes are irritated!)
• Use petroleum jelly on my upper eyelid.

My husband says I am a walking pharmacy - but I get so cranky when I am all irritated and uncomfortable, that he really should be grateful for my nostrums - which do create a degree of good humor!

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Just spent a week or so trying to get rid of a pesky virus (I think it was a virus - no fever or signs ot bacterial infection) - and picked up the L.A. Times to see that a supposedly healthy young woman had died of Dengue Fever after a trip to Mexico - It's transmitted by mousquito bites, and you know THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO BUT TREAT THE SYMPTOMS AND BEEF UP THE IMMUNE SYSTEM.

Another killer disease out there that's viral and so the MDs are helpless.  It's up to US to take our adaptogens like ginseng, and wellness vitamins and goldenseal and EVERYTHING - like putting cayenne pepper in your soup or cinnamon and honey in your tea!

Not to mention taking your regular vitamins daily and doing all the regular good health things and having a healthy diet!

It took me almost a week to get over this virus - but I could take the time - so I TOOK it.  The poor girl who died was a waitress and the management encouraged her to go home - but she worked until the day before she DIED.

So don't let anyone tell you that tacking care of yourself is slacking!  Staying home and curing yourself is better for everyone.

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Luckily for me, my mother was trained as a nurse in the days before penicillin and all the antibiotics, when you had to work on the patient's own resistance over time.  So basic health was always stressed, and I grew up with a sense of eating real food and having a balanced diet, and so on.

Now it seems in the days of the virus we are back to pre-antibiotic strategies, because we haven't figured out how to really kill viruses yet. So taking antibiotics for that cold just won't work, and probably do harm to your immune system. and even contribute to the drug resistant strains of bacteria we increasingly find out there.

In reading old English novels, I remarked on how those who could afford it went to the sea for fresh air and sunshine - or to the South where the weather was warmer...They knew that it takes TIME for the body to heal itself.  That seems to have been forgotten nowadays.  We think we can take a pill and voila! But it doesn't work that way.  It's a slow process of healing.

Strangely enough with the virus respiratory bug that's going around (we have mini-plagues) and which I have, too, I hear people saying, you just have to rest and get well.  I know that I pushed it over the holidays and that's why I had a relapse. So I am stoking my immune system and gargling with hot salt water and trying to take care of myself.  (That's with my regular vitamins and some extra ones...)

It was all much worse a few weeks ago, but it's hanging on - ugh. People may not like it, but I have declared a small moratorium, am staying home and sleeping a lot and healing. Sometimes it takes TIME.

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Got blindsided by what seems to be a tree allergy (or a combination - as the air has been bad here due to the L.A. area fires) and it crept up on me by surprise.  That hasn't happened in a long time - but I am pretty well much prepared!

I have suffered from complaints due to my allergies for so long, that I find I have a whole arsenal of home remedies to make it all feel much better.  So many tips that I actually sat down at www. associatedcontent.com/pamelamunro and wrote a whole article about it.  Frankly I am now too beat to repeat it all - so check out the article itself, huh? (I have another article about flu remedies AND supersweating, too.  Gee, maybe I AM high maintenance.

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Well, I have a flu-ish something AGAIN. Ugh.  Back to my goldenseal and homeopathic Oscillo (by Boiron & at drug stores now.)  The funny thing is that I looked up the ingredients (isn't the internet great?) and found that it comes from "muscovy duck" - a common domestic duck, apparently.  Now with what we know about bird flu transmitting occasionally to humans, it makes sense - as with using cow pox bacilli against small pox - Maybe the same is true of the chicken soup remedy???

There isn't much that can be DONE against the flu - and I am getting so early in the season there haven't even been flu shots yet.  It's a back to keeping your immune system as hearty as possible. (Oh, I have an article on "Surviving the Flu Season" from last year on www.associatedcontent.com/pamelamunro - It was last year, before I discovered the Oscillo, but includes all my other time-tried home treatments.

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