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How to Improve Your Immune System

Here is my experience in preventing illness in general, which I honed with a daughter who had a challenged immune system and trouble managing mucous:
Really good constitutional homeopathy can be incredibly helpful with preventing illness and making the illnesses we do get very mild.  Of course, if we can’t beat it easily, we also have treated acute illnesses [e.g., flu] with homeopathy, which lowers the duration and the intensity.
Clear the air and bedding in the room daily. Most people make their beds as soon as they awaken. The risk is that you’re just closing up a warm, often damp environment which is a perfect breeding ground for germs. So open up your sheets then open the window. If you can open your windows wide for an hour to air-out the rooms, great. Otherwise, just open them a tiny crack and leave them like that all day. Next to constitutional homeopathic work, this is probably what made the single biggest difference in how often we got sick.
Salt lamps also help to clear the air, but they can only clear the air around them in a sort of dome, so the bigger the lamp, the farther it can reach, or you’d need multiple lamps. I also have found they are most effective when left on 24 hours daily. They are a subtle glow, so they work like a nightlight for kids; adults tend to have a harder time with them.  If you live by the salt air, that makes a huge difference, too.  You’d be surprised what the body begins excreting once it’s gotten some salt air.
And we run a cool mist humidifier in the bedrooms at least at night, year ’round. I knew it helped us, then I recently read that moisturized nasal passages prevent germs from entering the body.The next thing is for you and your children to learn that very first sign that you are getting sick–is it a glimmer of congestion? That your throat feels dry even if you drink something? Whatever that very early sign is for you, boost your immune system right then. Here’s how we do it:
For the kids, I put Wild Harvest Orange Flavor Echinacea + Goldenseal [half-dropper for my 3 y.o., full dropper for my older kids] into a glass then fix Emergen-C in there for them. For the little ones, I typically split a regular Emergen-c packet between two glasses or use Emergen-c Kids; for my older son, I use a full packet of Emergen-C. My kids like Pink Lemonade and sometimes Tropical flavors of Emergen-C. The Wild Harvest elixir is the only one I have found that has a mild enough taste for my kids. Emergen-C is made with the kind of vitamin C that is not bad for your teeth or hard on your stomach, from what I understand, and our experience is that if we drink too much of it, the worst that happens is we get neon pee. Of course, the kids think that is fantastic!

My husband and I fix a glass of Emergen-C and take 2 VitaBiotic with the Emergen-C. If it doesn’t work on that first dose, chances are we are getting sick and we just let that happen. There are occasions, though, when it will be effective for several hours then symptoms will reappear. If that happens, we repeat the Emergen-C + VitaBiotic. We also do this preventively when we get the feeling that we are susceptible. I don’t take it a whole lot, though, overall, because I’m a less-is-more kinda gal.

We do use Vitamin D3 in the Winter, also, since we live someplace with minimal sunshine for many months. The most tasteless we’ve found is DDrops by Carlson. They make various IU levels–50IU for babies, 1000IU for kids, 2000IU, and 4000IU.  It hides extremely easily in drinks, though most of the family is not bothered by the taste. The kids generally like taking it, waiting for the drop to fall on their tongue seems to be funny!

There are some people who say you should only take supplements in their most natural state, because that makes the vitamins most bioavailable … and for Vitamin D, they say it should be in Cod Liver Oil that is processed at low temperatures etc.  A lot of people espouse the use of Butter Oil with the CLO.  You can check out Green Pastures for more information on their product, which is what I use in capsule form.  If you have taste-tolerant children, and I don’t but was able to do this successfully anyway for a time, you can put the CLO/BO in the fridge and then roll it into a ball with a tiny spoon and give it to them like a pill [I used a smidge of Mexican Coke to help them wash it down!].
After Outings, we use CleanWell wipes and spray, though now that our immune systems are stronger, I’m using those only after we’ve been to the stable, etc. because I want to challenge our immune systems as much as possible. But, back when I did need more help, I used those after every outing. And, I was adamant that the first thing we did after we got home from a public place was to wash our hands for the full 15-20 seconds.  We have Rainbow Light Vitamin C gummies in the car too. They are not overly high in sugar but are tasty enough for my kids. When they were more susceptible to illness, I would give everyone 2 gummies after we had been someplace with a lot of people [grocery store, school, mall, etc.] so they’d get that immediate immune boost.  We rarely use them like that now.We occasionally take a whole-foods-based multi-vitamin, too. My kids like Shaklee brand. But, I only gave it on school days or when I knew that some of their friends had been sick, etc., not every day.For our family, fresh air does make a difference–so if I were to make one change, it would be that we take a walk every day, rain or shine!Here are some general immune boosters, mainly for those who are able to handle more unusual tastes:

We generally follow a whole foods diet, and we try to stay low on sugar–sugar is an immune buster for sure. Here’s a resource Adequate water helps rid the body of toxins too!

Take a probiotic [the best I have found here come from my Naturopath so I cannot recommend one OTC though a lot of people take those just fine]. I read that fermented vegetables have way more probiotic goodies in them than the pills you take. Beet Kvass is a good immune booster and a natural probiotic. One year when we took that regularly, it made a huge difference in our immune health. It’s easy to make. You can google a recipe, but the basic is that you peel and chop chunks of beets into a half-gallon jar. Add 1/4c [?] of whey from yogurt, salt, and water. Let it ferment for 2 days. My husband and I drank a glass a day. for a recipe.

Properly prepared bone broth also is a massive health booster. For chicken, you need to cook it for 24 hours and for beef 72 hours. That way you get all the goodies out of the bone. Some kids do not care for soup [mine!], so try cooking grains like quinoa or rice with the broth to sneak a bit in. for recipes. [And if you like Cioppino, Sally Fallon’s fish broth used in her Cioppino recipe is all yum!]

And for homeopathic self-care for acute ailments, the Helios homeopathic kits are very handy–they contain the remedies and reference material all in the case.  With Helios remedies, one pillule=one dose, so those little vials go a long way.
Be well!


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