Best Things to cure sore throat/swollen glands?? Singers HELP!!- Page 2

[badkarma719]

Posted: 7/10/05 at 8:46pm

Room temp water is better then hot or cold

Throat Los.-- Slippery Elm, it taiste horrible but it works wonders. avalible at most health food stores.

Stay away from Dairy products, it will coat your throat and give you more flem

The Cold EZ is great I recomend the Nasal Swabs its a Q-tip kind of thing that you swab the inside of your nose with and its the greatest stuff I have ever used. I had to use it right before I opened YAGMCB in Feb.

Stay away from anit-hysstimens (sp) theey fry out your vocal chords

and I like the one from earlier
next time SPIT

[IveGottaBeME]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 2:45am

billy porter told me... Sleep, Warm up (slowly and easy), watttttttttttttterrrr non stop, throat coat tea with honey and steam.

[Di2]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 12:27pm

tea is drying so I would stay away from that and all forms of caffeine and alcohol.

I drink warm water and honey with no lemon...lemon is acidic and can strip your chords.

If you are that ill, stay in bed, rest and don't sing or speak at all.
It sucks, I know, but sometimes, your health is more important than a show or classes.

[Tom1071]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 12:29pm

Advil or Motrin to reduce the swelling.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 12:38pm

zinc,vitamin c and lots of it. as a tonic, mix hot water, lemon juice,maple syrup and cayanne pepper. make it very thick, sweet and spicey. many singers i know drink this (ann hampton callway and dianne reeves for instance) good luck! (and btw--when you are around lots of sick poeple don't share phones and don't touch doorknobs--this advice is from iron horse carol channing)

[Guillermo Ugarte]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 6:56pm

If you don't start to feel better in a day or two you may want to get to a doctor to be sure you don't have something bacterial that won't go away on its own. In the meantime if sing you must:

Mix 1 egg white (unrefrigerated if you can but this isn't mandatory) with the juice of a lemon.
Add a teaspoon of honey and 3 drops (no more than that) of glycerin (you can find this at any drug store) Glycerin is not great for internal use so be strict about the dose. Use an eye dropper if you can.
Beat the mixture and then take a teaspoon every 2-3 hours.
I've used it often and it always works.

[jczelyph]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 7:56pm

OK people. Let's clear one ridiculous misconception up right now...

Nothing you eat or drink "strips" your vocal cords. At all.

Stuff you eat and drink goes down your oesophagus, into your stomach. Your vocal cords are in your trachea (the windpipe) and when you eat or drink something, this is covered by a flap of tissue called your epiglottis. This is waht stops you choking on everthing you ingest. So nothing you swallow will ever touch your vocal cords (or if it does, you'll choke, and then you have bigger problems to worry about). Lemon juice will not strip your cords, unless you breathe it in. And then you'll die.

(Of course, stuff you inhale, for example smoke, will affect your voice. And some things might indrectly affect your cords once you've eaten them. Certain medications can cause a little spasm of the epiglottis, causing you to cough a lot. Theoretically, caffeine could dehydrate you and dry up your vocal cords, but once parts of you body like your cords have dried up, you'll be severely dehydrated, and, as I said before, you'll have bigger problems to worry about. Like your heart stopping, or you passing out.)

Mixtures containing glycerin and stuff like that might lubriacte your oropharynx, and feel soothing, but they're not having any action on your vocal cords.

Updated On: 7/11/05 at 07:56 PM

[RustyJusty830]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 8:55pm

Hey ya'll! I'm also doing CAP 21 this summer- a bit random: Amneris, I'm just wondering who exactly you are!
And in addition, some of you guys said there are some friends of yours doing the program- Who exactly are they? Just wondering for purposes of recognizing friends on the board :)

[Amneris]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 9:21pm

I'm in the professional fulltime program.

[HeartinNYC]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 10:28pm

Guillermo, a raw egg white? Is that okay to do re: salmonella? This is an interesting treatment.

[phantom_tenor]

Posted: 7/11/05 at 10:29pm

This is going to sound a little odd, and sound like it wouild be damaging, but when my voice is totally clogged and mucusy, etc, and i absolutely HAVE to sing, i drink about 50 mL of vinegar. It tastes disgusting and will quite probably make you wretch, but it will most probably do a great job of clearing out your sinuses.
This is just a suggestion. If you think it sounds unsafe, don't do it. I'm not offering this as professional advice. It's just what I do and have found to work.

Posted: 7/11/05 at 10:58pm

once when i was sick with something throat-related, i drank warm chicken broth with tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper in it. don't remember exactly what i was sick with but it was definitely a cold like thing involving my throat, and this stuff WORKED...

[Guillermo Ugarte]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 2:44pm

I would buy eggs from your usual reputable grocery store and don't leave them out for a long time. Just enough to take the chill off them. As for the glycerin effect on your vocal cords my suggestion was to see a doctor if things did not improve but this mixture will definitely help you sing until you do see a doctor or get rid of the virus.

I am not a doctor so I can't speak from the medical perspective but I can tell you that as a singer I have used this concoction for years and it works.

[shines]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 3:45pm

Get some throat relief spray. I recommend Vicks. It won't help your voice immidiately but it will help your throat and voice heal faster and relieve the pain until then.

[ken8631]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 4:04pm

I use the warm salt water gargle - def helps.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 4:10pm

JC, I love you! My first voice teacher's husband was a pharmacy doctor and they co-wrote a book on medicines of best use for singers.
And, yep, anti-inflammatories are the best! And they also agreed that the "Coke is bad for your cords" is just a fallacy.
To reiterate, nothing you put down your mouth is touching your vocal cords unless you're inhaling it or choking.

[jczelyph]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 5:26pm

Thanks, bwaysinger! I just thought I'd rein in some science to this discussion. Science and art go hand in hand!

There's so much nonsense out there about vocal health. Nothing you eat or drink can affect your cords, or you'd die every time you ate. Anti-inflammatories are a good idea but should be used with a touch of caution and they're quite unfriendly drugs so they shouldn't be used too much, especially if you have any stomach problems or have ever been allergic to aspirin.

Hope this helps.

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 7/12/05 at 6:54pm

Good to know...

[mi7269]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 9:24am

Hi

No one has mentioned ginger root yet?! Buy some ginger root, peel it and chop it up and boil it on a low gas for about 5-10 min, extract the ginger out and drink the juice.

lots of creaks for vocal warm ups in low registers should be soothing and help the chords start to close again

[mandy2loveRB]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 9:32am

Oh, I second ginger! That works. ...and not to gross you out, but, as someone mentioned...luke warm salt water and take it from NOSE and spit. Seriously. ...sorry, too gross? But that will clean up the pipe...

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 9:36am

No problem, JCZ! It's just good to get some of that actual science. I agree about the anti-inflammatories and would like to reiterate most of the remedies listed here are going to be more useful when the swelling or pain is in your tonsils or in the back of your mouth (which often happens to me when I get very sick).

[jczelyph]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 3:35pm

Yes, that's very true. I expect many of them will be soothing and help to clear mucus (which is made to protect tissue) and pus from the tonsils and/or oropharnyx. If you had infected vocal cords, you'd be much, much more ill and you'd probably have trouble breathing and be in serious danger.

[redhotinnyc2]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 3:58pm

When I'm performing, I drink a lot of Throat Coat tea with honey. but as others have pointed out here - that's simply temporary relief of over-use symptoms. If you really are carrying an infection, sleep and antibiotics are about the only thing that will truly cure your sore throat.
A lot of time, sore throats are psychosomatic, or all in your head, from stress and fear of performing. Rest, liquids and echinacea and vitamin C will help, though, if it's the real thing.

[ally_kay_on_broadway]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 4:14pm

im too lazy to read all the threads but once for a vocal jazz concert my voice was feeling crappy and my fellow alto passed me a fishermans friend. it was like "WHOA!" and my head blew off

ok...my head didn't REALLY blow off but it was pretty powerful and i found it quite helpful

[seasons of love]

Posted: 7/13/05 at 4:45pm

Wow, there is some really good info here! I'll definitely be keeping it in mind.

Also, take some immune system boosters along with doing the short-term remedies, water, tea etc. I was just on a long singing tour with the choir I'm a part of, and I got very little sleep. But because I took an AIRBORNE tablet, a multivitamin, and a Cod Liver Oil pill every morning, I didn't get sick. (I also drank a lot of water). This is really saying something because I am someone who gets sick when I am down on sleep for more than 3 nights. The AIRBORNE, vitamins, and Cod Liver Oil stuff I got at the health food store.

Good luck and feel better!!