Cabinet members: update, de-clutter, and reinvent your medicine chest with this list of must-have natural home remedies

a certain number of PEOPLE HAVE attics, basements, or storage units; I have a medicine cabinet. My go-to space for immediate health urgencys is filled with old and incomprehensible bottle vials, tubes, boxe capsules and--if I dig deep enough--phone messages, photos, and a brace of Jefferson Airplane 45s. It would be beautiful darn funny if it weren't for the fact that keeping expired medications and not making compass for the things I ne could endanger my health.

for a like reason what should I--and you--have upon hand? The solutions are simpler than you might think. "You don't usually ne big guns" says Karen Koffler MD director of integrative medicine at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Evanston, Ill. "For day-to-day ailments, place of abode remedies are often adequate." Koffler and other ables offer these suggestions for a medicine cabinet that would make a male child Scout proud.

ACHES/PAINS

MUST-HAVES nature of Life Magnesium Oil, Epsom salts, lavender oil

Magnesium helps relax muscles, which in make go round relieves muscular aches and pains, says Carolyn Dean, MD ND author of The Miracle of Magnesium. Take 400 mg twice daily--or, to avoid the side consequence of loose stools, spray substance of Life Magnesium Oil (globallight.net) upon sore spots three to four times a day. Another option: Soak in a warm bath with 2 beakers of Epsom salts, the household name for magnesium sulfate. Add a scarcely any drops of lavender oil to relax you further, and stay place for 20 minutes.

For strains, apply ice during the first 24 hours to diminish swelling, then use heat to draw not upon fluids and reduce stiffness.

COLD/FLU

MUST-HAVES Emer'gen-C sea salt, Neti kettle echinacea (tincture or pills), Esberitox

To avoid days of lying in bed buried in Kleenex invest in Emer'gen-C a pulverized substanceed energy boost that has 1000 milligrams of vitamin C by single-serving packet. Mix a packet with a chalice of water three times a day (your immune a whole works better when you're hydrated) at the first hint of a frigid Koffler advises.

To clear a close nose, try a saline solution (1/2 teaspoon of sea salt in a chalice of warm water). Add the solution to a conduited Neti Pot (netipot.org), tilt your head forward and to the side, pour the water into your upper nostril, and suffer it drain out through your lower nostril. bang your nose and repeat upon the opposite side. "The saline flushes on the outside bacteria and viruses that inflame the membranes," Koffler explains. "If you procure to the inflammation early, you can obstruct it from progressing."

Many ables continue to recommend echinacea, despite its mixed reviews. (A 2005 close attention funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine lay the foundation of that 900 mg of echinacea through day didn't affect colds--critics say the dose was too low--while a 2005 Canadian investigation showed that the herb improved immune responses) Montreal naturopathic doctor Stephanie Ogura, ND prescribes 3000 mg of echinacea a day, the dose give an inkling ofed by the World Health Organization and the Canadian Natural Health outcomes Directorate. "However, if you are not better within a week, take counsel a doctor," Ogura says. "And do not take echinacea for more than sum of two units or three weeks at a time." She advises checking with a health professional or a health-food store you trust to find a reputable manufacturer who uses a standardized formula.

Woodson Merrell MD director of integrative medicine at Beth Israel Continuum Center for Health & Healing in novel York, recommends Esberitox, a chewable mixed-herbal tablet that contains more unostentatious amounts of echinacea. Take three tablets three times a day.

FEVER/SORE THROAT/COUGH

MUST-HAVES Echinacea (tincture or pills), aconite, honey inflammable air peroxide, benzonatate

If your febrile affection is less than 104 stages and you have no other symptoms, don't worry about it, says Lisa Samet, ND a Montreal naturopath. "Bacteria and viruses die at high heat, for a like reason fever is your body's defense When you take aspirin, you're disarming those defense Instead, you ne to encourage your body's defense by means of taking herbs like echinacea."

Take 3000 mg of echinacea through day, but check with your doctor if your febrile affection doesn't subside within a small in number days, advises Ogura. Another option approveed by both naturopaths is the homeopathic help aconite. "It triggers the immune system" says Samet. Take single 30 CH dose in pellet form three times a day until your symptoms subside, intimates Ogura.

"For sore throats, examine honey," says Merrell. Honey contains a combine called pinocembrin, as well as enzyme that fight infection. Eat a teaspoonful straight, or add it to a chalice of tea three or four times a day. Merrell also praises gargling with hydrogen peroxide diluted with three to four parts water: "It can plane kill streptococcus, the kind of bacteria that cause strep throat, if you use it early enough."

For cough ask your doctor to prescribe benzonatate, or Tessalon perle This nonnarcotic physic numbs the sensors in the lung that trigger cough Since coughing actually defend s the lungs by clearing them of exces mucus that can carry infectious bacteria and viruses, Koffler advises treating alone nighttime hacking.