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How to get rid of sore throat: Home Remedies

Updated on November 24, 2011

Sore throat pain relief

To be certain, these are home remedies, and not medical treatments. If you have allowed your sore throat to linger for a while before attempting treatment of it, you may be well advised to see your doctor and get rid of it with prescription antibiotics. Then stock up on the following, and be ready next time. But read this entire article before deciding which substances to use, and in what order. The article is quite short, and the appropriateness of the suggestions will depend on just how sore your throat has become.

Lemon juice is excellent. You can cut the end off a small lemon and suck juice from it, allowing it to trickle down your throat. It will alleviate the pain almost immediately.

Gargling with hydrogen peroxide is extremely effective, if you can get it in contact with the sore spot. It will pull out mucus and kill infection at the same time. Peroxide is far more effective than salt water, and the salt water can actually be more painful on a very sore throat.

Hot tea is very soothing, but what you make the tea out of is important, too. If you make a tea out of Fenugreek seed, it will coat the throat and remove the pain. But Fenugreek is not very good tasting, so you may want to put honey in the tea, or brew the tea with peppermint leaves as well, so the taste is more pleasant. Honey, by the way, is soothing for a sore throat, too, so you may do well to use it in the Fenugreek tea for both reasons.

Remember that both lemon juice and Fenugreek are effective, but they have to come in contact with the affected areas. If you lie down on your side, so when you swallow they trickle down the side of your throat where the trouble is, they can be more effective.

Another very effective treatment is ginger. You can get ginger root from the health food store and chew it. But you don't have to do that if your kitchen cabinets are well stocked with culinary herbs and spices. Ground ginger, right out of the shaker can is just as effective as chewing on ginger root.

Moisten your finger tip and put some ginger on it. Then place the ginger as far back on your tongue as possible without gagging yourself. If the soreness is predominantly on one side of your throat, put the ginger over to that side of your tongue. Very slowly swallowing as your saliva dilutes the ginger, coats the throat with the ginger, and relieves the soreness.

And there is one more thing that works quite well. Chew up a tablet of zinc tablet and permit it to slowly ride down your throat. If zinc is taken by mouth at the first sign of a cold or flu, the disease can frequently be thrown off before it can really take hold of you. But even later, it will help with that sore throat.

A couple words of caution, though, before you try these treatments. Which ones you use depends a lot on just how sore your throat is. If it is extremely sore, I would treat with the mildest treatment first, and work up to the strongest ones, as they can be slightly painful when they first contact the soreness.

A very bad throat, I would attack first with some warm (not hot) tea. But don't stop there. Drink a second cup right away, only make it hotter.

Move up to lemon juice when you are able. Lemon juice is hard on the enamel of your teeth, so you will want to definitely stop after consuming one lemon, and move on to other treatments. But the lemon juice is extremely effective at killing germs--they cannot live in ascorbic acid.

And there is one more point I would like to make about lemon, and even the tea. You can more effectively target the sore areas if you take a sip of liquid, then lie down on one side before slowly swallowing. The liquid will coat that one side of your throat on the way down. Repeat the procedure on your other side, and your throat will be coated more effectively than by just swallowing while in an upright position.

If you can do the lemon juice, you should not have too much trouble gargling hydrogen peroxide. Try to be certain not to swallow it, as it is not intended for internal use.

Ginger is strong and therefore can be painful, so it should be one of your last entrenchments in the battle. Zinc tablets are a bit chalky in your mouth, but if your throat is really sore, you won't mind the chalkiness quite so much. You can always rinse it down with some warm tea, but you should allow the zinc to stay in contact with the sore part of your throat for as long as you can. The absolute best time for this zinc use is at the first sign of a sore throat (or even a cold, for that matter).

You should have no trouble getting a sore throat under control if you keep ginger and Fenugreek seed tea on hand, as well as zinc in the cabinet and a lemon in your refrigerator during cold and flu season. Every home should have a fresh bottle of hydrogen peroxide on hand. Check the expiration date and replace as needed.

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