Did you catch a cold or what might be the flu virus, and you’re thinking: how did I get sick? What am I going to do now? How do I get it to go away as fast as possible? 

Then you’re in the right place because in this video I’m going to be giving you my tips on how I get myself through a cold virus, recover faster, and avoid antibiotics and steroids so you can get get back to doing what you love while supporting your body through the process. I’m Dr. Doni Wilson, and welcome to How Humans Heal.

Please do keep in mind that in this format, I’m able to provide general information, but it’s not going to be specific to you. It’s important that you know your body, and that you check in with your practitioner to help guide you. 

If you are a patient of mine, please reach out to my office as soon as you realize you are sick, so we can have an appointment, and I can help you through it. 

If you are not yet a patient of mine, and you would like more individualized guidance, you can apply for an initial consultation on my website at DoctorDoni.com. 

Let’s review eight strategies I find help patients of all ages to prevent viral infections, and to recover faster. This way you’ll be able to start implementing right away. 

Strategy 1: Take Action Early – Recognize the First Symptoms

The sooner you figure out that you caught a cold virus, the better because that means you can take action to address it as soon as possible. 

A lot of times we dismiss or ignore symptoms. We might feel a scratchy throat, and then several days go by and next thing you know it’s full-blown sinus congestion and coughing. 

I suggest that you, instead, pay attention to those early symptoms of a cold and start supporting your immune system. Starting sooner is going to help you get through it faster.

Bring your awareness to what are the most common initial symptoms for you. How do you first know you might have caught a cold or virus of some sort? Do you tend to get a sore throat? Maybe you woke up with some phlegm that you were coughing up. Maybe you were sneezing more than usual, have a runny nose, or you’re blowing your nose. 

Maybe you felt more tired than usual, have a headache or neck ache. Sometimes it’ll go straight to your head or neck, sometimes straight to your ears. Maybe you start to feel like your ears are filled with fluid or they’re popping. For some people, they may even feel dizzy. Sometimes patients will say to me they don’t know why they feel dizzy all of a sudden, and it could actually be from having a type of virus that affects your inner ear that can make you feel dizzy or have vertigo, nausea, or headache.

Sometimes it’s confusing at first because allergies can also cause some of these same symptoms. You want to be thinking is this an allergy, or is this a virus?

 Both viruses and allergies cause clear phlegm. You know it’s becoming bacterial if you start to see yellow or green phlegm. I encourage you to look at the phlegm when you cough or blow your nose, so you know the color. That’s really important. If the phlegm starts to look yellow or green, then we know you’ve got some bacteria that jumped on board.

Here’s what happens: A virus causes your body to make extra liquid, and that’s what gets stuck in your sinuses, ears and throat, making you cough. Bacteria love all the fluid – it makes it easier for them. So bacteria come in after the virus, and that is what causes you to get a sinus infection or bronchitis or pneumonia. That’s what we want to prevent by catching it early. Once a bacterial infection sets in, we’ll need to address it as well.

Strategy 2: Get the Fluid Out

One of my best strategies for getting through a virus and avoiding a bacterial infection and the need for antibiotics is to prevent fluid from building up in your sinuses. 

As soon as I know that I’ve come down with something, I start focusing on getting the extra fluid out. I’m going to blow my nose and clear my throat every time I sense extra fluid. I don’t want it sitting there waiting for bacteria to take over. 

Don’t let your sinuses fill with liquid. You want it out. You want to be able to breathe through your nose. That’s a good test. If you can breathe through your nose, you know there’s not a bunch of fluid stuck in there. If fluid builds up, blow it out, clear it out, and then keep breathing through your nose to keep it moving.

Not only does getting the fluid out prevent bacteria from taking over. It also helps you to feel better faster!

I have a favorite supplement, called Hesperidin, that helps to decrease fluid production and prevent congestion. You can take 1 or 2 Hesperidin every 4 to 6 hours during a cold to prevent fluid build-up.

And if the phlegm gets stuck and is thick, take NAC N-acetylcysteine 500 mg once or twice per day to thin the phlegm. 

Salt also helps to thin phlegm and help it to move on out. I’ll talk about how you can use salt in a minute. 

Strategy 3: Shift Your Mindset

When we first start to get sick, sometimes we’re in denial. Maybe it’s that we don’t want to tell other people that we’re sick or don’t want to admit it to ourselves. But while we are in denial, we’re not giving our body the attention it needs in order to heal. I encourage you to just accept it – “I’ve got a cold. Know let me do what I need to do to address it.”

The other thing that can sometimes happen is we feel frustrated. We’re so mad that someone gave us a virus, and we get stuck in anger and resentment about it. 

When we’re stuck in anger, it’s not going to help us recover from the cold because it’s triggering a stress response. Cortisol and adrenaline (our stress hormones) will respond, and that’s going to work against you when you’re trying to heal from a cold because they decrease the immune response.

If you can shift your mindset to recovery mode, that’s going to speed up your healing. 

As humans, we get exposed to viruses, especially when we’re around other people, if you’re traveling or you’re at events and you have family members who are school. I get exposed to viruses all the time from my granddaughter and my daughter who are in the preschool and college environment, and then they come to my house and I get exposed. It doesn’t help for me to get stuck in resentment about that. I want them around me, so that means I’m going to get exposed to viruses.

Once you know you were exposed or have the symptoms of a virus, I encourage you to get your head in the game of healing from it. If your mind is having thoughts of resentment or frustration, let that go and get into the moment where you can help your body heal. 

Catching a virus is actually good for your immune system. Immunologists say that it’s healthy for us to catch at least one virus every year. It’s good practice for our immune system. Our immune system needs to get exposed to a virus in order to mount a healthy immune response and protect us. It’s healthy to get some inflammation and work through the process and have all the phlegm and cough it up. Those are normal things our human bodies do.

Let yourself be in the process and think to yourself – how can I support my body in its healing process? 

Your body knows how to protect you from a virus. If you’re human, you have a built-in immune system that knows how to protect you. We just need to support it.

We also can’t be too attached to the amount of time it will last. Some viruses only last twenty-four hours. For others it is several days or a week. My mindset is to see if I can shorten it as much as possible. At the same time, if we’re too attached to how long it’s going to last, that can cause more stress again. 

The goal is to not get stressed about having a virus and instead focus on doing all the things to help your body through it.

Strategy 4: Use Salt for Healing

I love to use salt to help with recover from cold viruses of all types. 

As soon as I feel something in my throat, I gargle with salt water because salt is able to kill viruses and bacteria, it’s anti-inflammatory, so it’s going to help soothe any pain and discomfort, and it’s going to help thin out the phlegm. If there’s phlegm in your throat, salt water will help thin it out so you can get it out easier.

Patients will say to me, is one salt better than another? I suggest getting the healthiest sea salt or Celtic salt. Don’t use a plain sodium salt like kosher salt, because it’s just sodium. We want a whole salt that has all the minerals in it. 

First, I put two ounces of filtered water, clean water, into a small juice glass. Then I put about 1/8^th teaspoon of sea salt in the water. I gargle with the salt water and spit it out in the sink. If it’s too salty, add more water. 

Get good at gargling and spitting! It’s very good for your body to know how to do that. 

Then, especially if you start to fill it in your sinuses and you’re blowing your nose, I would use the salt water to do a nasal rinse. You can use a saline nasal rinse. However, honestly, I find that saline rinses are not salty enough. 

What I do is put clean filtered water into a clean bowl and add sea salt to the water. It’s important to make it fresh each time – don’t use water that’s been sitting around for a long time. 

What I do is stick my nose in the water, just barely under the surface of the water, and sniff the water up my nose, like a quick little sniff, and then blow it out. Blow it out into a tissue or paper towel. You’re just barely sniffing the water up your nose, and blowing it back out again. Repeat that a couple times. The goal is to get some of that nice clean salt water up your nose to rinse it out, decrease inflammation and get rid of bacteria.

The salt water nasal rinse helps to clear our congestion and to prevent a sinus infection. It can also help resolve a cough caused by postnasal drip.

I don’t tend to use a neti pot because I find it’s too much liquid and it’s likely to remain in your sinuses. If you’re using a neti pot, be very careful. You don’t need very much water to be effective. We’re talking no more than a teaspoon or two of water going in and immediately blow it back out of your sinuses again. 

You don’t want liquid sitting in your sinuses or dripping down your throat. And it’s also important to be using clean water to be sure you don’t bring in anything you don’t want in your sinuses.

Strategy 5: Use Colloidal Silver Spray

The next thing that I do is use what is referred to as “colloidal silver” or nanoparticles of silver in a liquid form. It is a dilution of silver in water. 

Professional grade nanoparticles of silver can be used many ways, including on your skin, in your mouth and throat, and can be sprayed up your nose. 

Silver is antimicrobial, so it kills viruses, bacteria, and fungus. It’s a great tool and doesn’t have side effects. 

I usually get the bottle that is used as a nasal spray because I can squirt it in my throat and I can squirt it up my nose. I suggest using it twice or three times a day. It’s going to help you speed up your healing process from any kind of cold virus or other infection.

Strategy 6: Rest and Heat

As soon as you know that you caught a virus, your body needs rest to promote healing. I encourage you to look at your schedule for the day or the next couple days and cancel plans or say no to what you can.

You need time to rest more. Plan on going to bed early and/or sleeping in, as well as taking naps during the day. 

I also recommend taking a hot shower or hot bath. Stay a little longer in the shower and/or bath. Increasing your body temperature helps you fend off an infection

In fact, a fever is one of the ways your immune system helps you fend off an infection. So if at all possible, allow your body to have a low-grade temperature without reducing it with medications. A little bit of a fever, like ninety-nine to one hundred degrees means your immune system is working. That’s a good thing! 

If a fever gets too high, which would be over 103 degrees Fahrenheit for adults or over 102 degrees Fahrenheit for children, then we’re going to need to consider whether it has become a bacterial infection. If it is bacterial, you may need antibiotics. Be sure to contact your healthcare provider for guidance specific to your case. 

The best way to lower a fever, and prevent it from going too high, is to stay hydrated. Make sure you’re drinking water with electrolytes or herbal tea. You can put a pinch of sea salt in your water for electrolytes. 

As long as you don’t have a high fever, it is okay to raise your body temperature by taking a bath or going in a sauna, especially if you have access to an infrared sauna. Keeping your body warm is a good idea. Bundle up in warm pajamas and a warm blanket, drink warm liquids (hot tea for example) and stay snuggled up because all of that is going to help your body heal.

You can also try alternating with cold if you’d like. Alternating hot with cold is used in traditional hydrotherapy. The transition from hot to cold causes your body to increase blood circulation to warm you up, and it stimulates your immune system.

For example, you can go in a hot shower for three minutes and then switch the water to cool or cold for one minute. It doesn’t have to be ice cold. You could start with cool water. Listen to your body and be careful. 

You can also do what I call “magic socks” where you put cold socks on your feet, then cover them with dry socks, and let your body warm up your feet for 15 to 30 minutes. You can also use alternating hot and cold to prevent yourself from getting sick.

Strategy 7: Avoid Immune-Suppressing Foods

There are so many things you can do to help yourself recover that don’t involve taking any supplements or medications. We’ve talked about things you can do to stimulate your own immune system. Let’s also talk about avoiding things that decrease your immune function. 

The first thing to avoid is sugar. I’m talking about refined sugar like a spoonful of sugar or any products that contain cane sugar in the ingredients. Sugar lowers the immune system and makes you more susceptible to infections. 

That’s not the case with fruit or honey. You could have a little fruit and/or honey. I like to put raw honey in my herbal tea to soothe my throat. I use the Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat tea. It’s very soothing for a cough as well. 

It’s also important to avoid alcohol because alcohol lowers immunity as well. 

I also recommend avoiding dairy (anything made from cow milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt) and gluten during a cold because they are the most inflammatory foods and they will work against you when you have a cold virus. Dairy is also known to increase phlegm. 

When you avoid sugar, alcohol, gluten, and dairy, you’re going to heal a lot faster. Instead, choose easy to digest, cooked foods, such as soup. 

Strategy 8: Key Supplements for Recovery

When it comes to supplements, I recommend you have the following supplements in your home and ready to use because by the time you find out you’re sick, it’s too late to order or go get them. I’d rather you start taking supplements right away, as soon as you figure out that you’re sick.

The things I would have in your cabinet, or have shipped to you as soon as possible, would be vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea. Those are the top 3 vitamins and herbs I would choose for helping to protect you from a virus. There are more we can add, and will discuss next, but it is best to take at least these three.

Vitamin C, because we often don’t get enough of it as humans. Even if you’re eating fruits, you’re probably not getting enough vitamin C. It’s so good for the immune system and very unlikely to have any downsides to it.

 If you swallow a lot of vitamin C all at once, you are more likely to experience loose stool or diarrhea, so you’re not going to take a lot at once. The key is to spread it over time. It’s better to take five hundred milligrams every three or four hours and spread it through the day. This way it doesn’t cause loose stool, but it is giving you a trickle of vitamin C all day.

Then there’s zinc, which you can take between fifteen to thirty milligrams per day. We can bump up the zinc a little bit for a short period of time and get a lot of healing benefits. Zinc really helps stimulate the immune system and support healing.

 If you were to take extra zinc for a long time, you’re going to need to make sure you have copper too, but if you’re just adding zinc for a week to help with a cold virus, that’s unlikely to disrupt your copper levels in that amount of time. 

Echinacea is the first herb that comes to mind for helping with cold viruses. There’s a ton of research on echinacea, and you can often access echinacea as a tea, or in capsules or liquid. As long as you’re not allergic to it, then you can take echinacea. 

I would take echinacea with the vitamin C, spread out through the day every three or four hours. That way you have a constant flow of echinacea, which is immune supportive and antiviral. It’s also antibacterial. 

Please keep in mind that it’s important to check in with your practitioner if you are taking any medications that may conflict with herbs or nutrients, and if you have an allergy to any of the mentioned substances. 

Additional Immune Support with Herbs, Nutrients, and Mushrooms

There are many other nutrients and herbs that are known to support the immune system and help fend off cold and flu viruses. 

Some people love oregano oil, and they’ll take it either as an oil or capsules. Oregano is very good as an antiviral, immune supportive, and antibacterial. Others love to take olive leaf. Olive leaf is also antiviral and immune supportive. 

One of my latest favorites is black cumin seed oil. You can get black cumin seed as an oil or in a capsule form. I put the oil right on a spoon and put it straight in my mouth. Black cumin seed is immune supportive, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial, all in one.

The other nutrients that I love to use are vitamin A and D. Vitamin D is one we can monitor in blood work. If your vitamin D is less than fifty, you need more vitamin D, especially if you live where you don’t get very much sunlight, because we get vitamin D from the sun. So get your vitamin D levels checked in blood work, and I might suggest taking 5000 IUs every day anyway, if you are not getting sun exposure. Then you can take an extra five thousand for a week or two if you catch a cold virus just to boost your levels.

Vitamin A is a fat soluble nutrient, just like vitamin D, so we don’t want to overdo them. But if you catch a cold virus, then it’s okay to take a little extra vitamin A for a week. You just wouldn’t do that if you’re pregnant or if you’re breastfeeding or if you have a liver issue or you already know you’ve been taking too much vitamin A. Same thing with vitamin D. You’ve got to know your body and your levels, but in general we can use a little bit of extra vitamin A during a week or two long infection. I’m talking about actual vitamin A, not beta-carotene.

I also like to use mushroom extracts like reishi, shiitake, and others that are immune supportive. You can get very high-quality mushroom formulas, usually with a combination of mushrooms in them, and those can be in capsule form or liquid form. I like the brand Host Defense, for example.

Taking a product called Beta-glucan, is a great way to give an extra boost to your immune support, especially if you’ve been catching every cold. 

Recommended Product Combinations

My preference is to use all-in-one supplements that contain several of the nutrients and herbs, such as vitamin C, zinc, echinacea and vitamin A together all in one product. 

There’s a product in the Nature Empowered product line called Immune Support that has vitamin C, zinc, echinacea and Vitamin A together with some other herbs too, like Astragalus and Andrographis. These are also herbs that are antiviral and immune supportive. 

There’s another product called Immune Plus that has vitamin D, quercetin and NAC in addition to vitamin C and zinc. Quercetin is anti-inflammatory, and NAC helps thin phlegm, so Immune Plus is especially good for those purposes.

Managing Excess Fluid, Congestion, and Cough

One of my all-time favorite supplements is called hesperidin. Hesperidin is a plant-based substance that is an antihistamine, and it helps decrease the fluid in your sinuses and runny nose during a viral infection. 

A virus causes your body to make extra liquid in an effort to clear the virus, however then your ears and sinuses are full of fluid, and your nose is running constantly. If you’re thinking: “how do I turn off the faucet?” Hesperidin is going to help. 

Hesperidin is helpful for allergies, but I use it for viral infections because it helps decrease the fluid production, which ends up preventing bacterial infections. It also makes it easier to sleep when you have a cold because you won’t have liquid dripping in your throat causing you to cough. It helps to prevent sinus infections and ear infections. 

Many times a cough is caused by phlegm dripping in your throat (known as post nasal drip). Hesperidin will help prevent post-nasal drip and coughing. 

A cough is your body trying to get liquid or phlegm out of your breathing area. The goal is to help your body cough up what it’s trying to get out and prevent phlegm from getting stuck in your lungs. It can take practice to learn how to cough effectively, so you can use your body and muscles to get phlegm out without overworking your muscles in your chest. We want to get the phlegm out, and at the same time heal from the cough so that it’s not leading to more severe coughing or pneumonia.

I much prefer to use herbs to help your body cough effectively, to get phlegm out, and to help your body heal from the cough, instead of a cough suppressant that simply inhibits the cough without supporting your body to heal. 

You can start with the Throat Coat tea with honey that I mentioned above. When you drink something warm, it soothes your throat and prevents coughing.

There are herbal liquids that are used to help recover from a cough. One option is an herbal syrup called Lung & Bronchial Tonic containing amazing herbs to heal a cough: https://doctordoni.com/product/lung-bronchial-tonic-4-oz/

There’s another product called Herbal Immunity, which has some of the same and some different herbs to help your body heal from a cough: https://doctordoni.com/product/immune-glycerite-2-oz/.

To help with healing the lungs, and from a virus in general, it can be helpful to use bromelain, which is anti-inflammatory. If you have an ear infection, vertigo, or swelling in your eustachian tube, bromelain can be really helpful. It’s important to take bromelain away from food to be effective. 

If You Keep Getting Sick, We Need to Address the Root Cause

If you were sick two weeks ago and you’re sick again, then It is best to work with me as a one-on-one patient so I can guide you specifically based on your needs. 

I would likely add extra support to help your immune system recover. That may be when we add a mushroom formula, beta-glucan, and potentially others to really boost your immune system. 

I would also start thinking about which foods you are eating that might be dropping your immune system. And we would start considering your environment to see what is lowering your immune function.  

Are you being exposed to stress or trauma? Is there mold or another toxin in your environment? When you’re exposed to mold toxins, like in a water-damaged building, it lowers your immune system and makes you more susceptible to infections. 

Most times people don’t realize they are being exposed to mold hiding behind the walls, but if you’re getting sick over and over again, it can be worth getting an inspection for mold in your home. We can also do a urine test for mold toxins in your body, to find out if you have been exposed to mold toxins. Then, if we find that you have been exposed to mold toxins, I can guide you to detoxify safely and effectively. 

Just know that if you keep on getting sick, there’s probably a reason, and we need to dig deeper. Is there an imbalance of cortisol? Is there something you’re eating that’s inflammatory? Is there an allergen? Is there a mold exposure or some other toxin exposure? Let’s address the underlying cause so you don’t keep on having to get sick. We also want to help you prevent the need for taking antibiotics over and over again.

What I find is once I help someone through one infection using these strategies, then it’s much easier the next time you catch a virus because you start to learn more about your body and what it needs, and your immune system starts to protect you better too.

Summary for What To Do When You Catch a Virus

I hope this information helps you to have more confidence for when you catch a cold virus. 

As soon as you know you’re sick, start right in, gargle salt water, use the silver spray in your nose and mouth, take a hot bath, and get extra sleep. That’s already going to make a difference. 

Avoid the foods that are going to inhibit your immune system and take the supplements that are going to support healing. 

I immediately start to take Hesperidin, and an all-in-one immune support product that contains vitamin C, zinc, and antiviral herbs. I take one of each, every four hours. Meanwhile, you can take extra vitamin A if you would like and if appropriate for your case, as well as extra herbs and mushrooms. This way you’re matching your body and giving your body the support it needs to help your immune system protect you.

I want you to feel that you know exactly what to do and that you have what you need. As you follow these strategies and listen to your body, you’ll feel more and more confident that you’ll recover faster and that you’re not going to end up needing antibiotics and steroids. 

Still, if you do need to take antibiotics and steroids (if they were prescribed to you), you should take them. Whenever possible we prefer to help your body recover and not need them. Antibiotics and steroids disrupt our gut microbiome and weaken our immune system, making us more susceptible to the next infection.

Even if you’re taking antibiotics or steroids, I would still follow all the strategies discussed here to help your body recover. Antibiotics just kill bacteria. They don’t support your immune system. Taking supportive herbs and nutrients, and doing self-care, is going to help you recover faster and prevent the next infection.

If you get ear infections, there are herbal ear drops, with garlic and mullein. You can put drops in your ears twice per day to help prevent or address an ear infection.

If you have a child who has a cold, let me know because I frequently help with children going through colds and ear infections. We can use liquids, such as glycerites without alcohol, and doses that are safe for children. There are certain substances we wouldn’t use with children.

If a child gets a fever, it’s more important to address it sooner. If a baby or toddler’s temperature goes above 102 degrees, it’s more concerning than it would be for an adult. Monitor your baby’s temperature and make sure they’re staying hydrated. Contact your pediatrician if it’s not getting better. 

Avoiding sugar and dairy makes a difference for kids, as well as magic socks (mentioned earlier). Please know there are things you can for children to help them get better faster and prevent the use of antibiotics whenever possible. Reach out to me for more help.

Cold and Flu Recovery Guide and Supplies

I put all of this information and more, including links and photos, into a PDF you can download and save for when you need it. You can download my Cold and Flu Recovery Guide here.

If you want to stock up your cabinet with the best products to recover faster from a cold or flu you can find products I mentioned at the Nature Empowered online store here.

Here are direct links so you can find them easily. Keep in mind that some products require that you are a patient in my office to have access to order. 

1. Immune Support
2. Immune Support Plus
3. Immune Support Bundle
4. Bio-Active Silver Hydrosol Immune Vertical Spray
5. Silver Hydrosol Fine Mist Spray
6. Vitamin A Support
7. Vitamin C Support
8. Vitamin D & K Support
9. Hesperidin (HMC)
10. Bromelain
11. Quercetin
12. NAC SAP
13. Zinc Support
14. Daily Immune Support – Stamets 7 Mushrooms
15. Oregano Oil
16. Olive Leaf Extract
17. Black Cumin Seed Oil
18. Herbal Immunity
19. Lung & Bronchial Tonic
20. Beta-Glucan – requires log in

Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of How Humans Heal. I hope this episode gives you the confidence and tools you need to navigate the next cold or flu with ease. Remember, your body already knows how to heal—you’re simply supporting it through the process. 

If you need more personalized guidance or find yourself getting sick repeatedly, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can schedule as a new patient on my website here.  If you want to learn about my approach to addressing the root cause of a health issue and how it is connected to stress you can start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

I’m here to help you understand what your body needs so you can feel empowered, recover quickly, and build lasting immune resilience. 

Please do leave a comment or review, and subscribe so you don’t miss my next episode!

I’m glad you’re here! 

Dr. Doni

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