lost my voice again

[ritaxis]

I'm pretty sure the weird feeling in the space above my missing teeth was a sinus infection in waiting all along. I'm pretty sure that what I've got going now is a sinus infection full-blown.

And I'm very sure that I am very, very tired of losing my voice every time I get any kind of respiratory thing. And I'm really irritated that the ear nose and throat specialist I saw a while back spent five minutes dismissing the hoarseness that brought me in to him after a month and a half of it.

I'm not whispering, but I can't carry a tune either, and that's a crucial part of my professional toolkit.

On another front: peanut butter and celery now seems to me to be a breakfast pastry.

Oh, and department of (nearly) irreproducible recipes: I have made a hot vinegar by loosely half-filling a tall baby food jar (guess where I got that from) with baby wild radish seed pods and flowers and then filling it up with rice vinegar. It's lovely to look at, but I won't taste it for a little while longer. This can only be done in May: before that, there are not enough seed pods, and after that, there are not enough undeveloped ones. I am sure ripe ones would make a satisfactory vinegar, but I am thinking that the unripe ones will make a satisfactory quick pickle also. They get tough as soon as you can tell they have seeds in them. I know this because I started using them in salads last year or the year before. I think it only takes them a week or so after the flower withers to get tough.

Still working overtime, but a little less now, since I'm not having to stay so late. Writing a few sentences here and there.

Comments

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

Ginger tea.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

So -- do you use the root? Do you grate it or pop chunks of it into the water? Boil it or steep it? (or both?) eep -- dried or fresh? Is the point just to blow out the sinuses or is there some other principle involved?

I'm really interested in this.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I pop peeled slices of the root into water, then boil & steep. (I guess you could crush it first if you want to make it even stronger.)Usually it's sweetened (sugar or honey) but that's optional.
It's a traditional Filipino remedy for any throat ailment, specially hoarseness. (But it's also a blood thinner, just so you know. )

I don't think we have a traditional sinus remedy though -- the local humidity usually solves that by itself. I did read in consumer reports health that saline sinus irrigation supposedly works (neti pots, etc), as does honey for coughs, and chicken soup for colds.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

It's what I use for sore throat and nausea, too. But I cheat. I take candied ginger, cut it into tiny dice, put at the bottom of a mug, and pour boiling water over. When it's cool enough to drink, I do, and then there's all the little spicy bits of ginger to eat at the bottom.