I went to PT and all I got was this lousy head cold

[starlady]

Over the past few weeks I've been having more pain in my elbow and forearm and wrist again, and it got particularly bad last weekend when I had to spend the weekend on a very uncomfortable cot - at one point Saturday night I woke up and both my arms were asleep, even with the elbow brace. So yesterday I cut Chinese tutorial and went to PT instead, which was a good decision. My therapist manipulated my neck for a good ten or fifteen minutes (we talked about Bay Area restaurants and Japanese, as usual) and within 20 minutes of when I'd left my head was as congested as it's ever been in my life - in fact, last night I probably had the worst head pressure I've ever had. I've never had this happen before, and I hope it doesn't happen again, but no matter what, it was worth it.

And I got epershand's boss's cold remedy recipe:

1 pint (500 ml) still spring water

1 teaspoonful whole cloves

Cinnamon stick, broken

1 level teaspoonful ground ginger

Honey to taste

Juice of one freshly squeezed lemon

 

Pour the water into a stainless steel or enamel saucepan, add the cloves and broken cinnamon stick and bring to boiling point.

Turn down the heat and simmer in a covered pan for five minutes.

Then turn off the heat, add the ground ginger and leave on the stove to infuse for about 30 minutes.

Re-heat before use to just below simmering point.

Pour some of the decoction through a tea strainer into a cup, then add one dessertspoonful lemon juice and as much honey as you wish to sweeten.

 

Drink a cupful two or three times a day, gently reheating the spicy decoction (but not the lemon juice and honey) each time before use.

This made two cups and is quite tasty with a shot of whiskey and juice of 1/2 lemon each.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I'm sorry for your head cold — do you think the head/neck manipulation might have enabled internal flowage, so to speak?

Also, I really like your addition to that recipe.

[starlady]

Oh yeah, apparently it's an ncommon but normal thing. I'm told it's also possible to reverse the causal relationship.

The other option would be to try to get tea in there somehow for a real hot toddy effect. Maybe tea vodka or something?

[kaigou]

Seems like you could just skip the rest and go for just the whiskey. At least then you'd have an enjoyable if slightly tipsy headcold.

Body parts falling asleep!? Manipulating your neck took care of that? I had no ideer. I spent a summer, a few summers back, doing a whole lot of woodworking and never thought about the repetitive damage of holding jigsaw, circular saw, sawsall (let alone picking up and moving major pieces of plywood). Then one morning woke up and my hands were asleep. Naturally, I kept playing in the workshop, until I couldn't even drive because my hands and then my arms would fall asleep if I just held the steering wheel with my arms bent.

Finally went to see a sports PT, who took one look at the symptoms and told me I had given myself like triple case of carpal tunnel in wrists and elbows. Whoops. Never had anyone mention that it could be helped by massaging elsewhere.

(Then again, this is probably because knowing me, I would've used that as excuse to get right back into the workshop and do even more damage to myself, so maybe disregard.)

[starlady]

Well, the arms falling asleep is bad because I have golfer's elbow, thus more strain on the nerve = more pain.

Weirdly enough, it was actually diagnosed via terrible wrist pain.

It tasted good, though! And I don't care for straight whiskey all that much.