How Onions Beat Sinus Infections

Getting a sinus infection? Try this simple home remedy...

It's time for the onion to get some respect. Picture this:  you cut up an onion and get hit with a vapor cloud that makes your eyes water, your nose run like a faucet and your lungs burn. And that is exactly why the onion can be your friend when you have sinus pain, infection or congestion.

Onions are loaded with anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and sulphur-compounds that can wreak havoc on the most stubborn "bugs" that can make you sick.

For millenia, people have used garlic and onions to fight off infections, parasites and fungus.

Because onions and garlic are loaded with sulphur compounds, they have a natural ability to fight off unwanted bacteria, parasites and yeast.

In the "good old days" -- not that long ago, really--the first antibiotics put into pharmaceutical drugs were sulphur-based.

These drugs were known as"sulphonamide" drugs, and they paved the way for antibiotic ever since.


Safe Enough To Eat

Onions and garlic have the added benefits of being completely safe to use (unless you shove them up your nose, but who'd do that, right?) and they are loaded with enzymes that break down mucus and help it exit your body.

This makes these sulphur-bearing bulbs a real boon to natural remedies.

Antibiotic Side Effects

Antibiotics are "broad spectrum"--meaning they kill both healthy and unwanted bacteria indescriminately.

Antibiotics cannot discern between bacteria your body needs in its system to stay healthy,and those germs that are causing your infection...therefore, they carpet bomb good and bad bacteria alike, and leave your immune system upside down in the aftermath.

Because oral antibiotics are "systemic" drugs--once you ingest them, they spread to all areas ofyour body, as well as to the areas of infection your targeting.

It's All of Nothing

This means that in order to target a localized area of infection (like a sinus infection) you still have to introduce antibiotics to your entire body.

And while this broad-spectrum approach has many benefits and blessings in fighting off otherwise serious infections, it is not without its side effects to manage.

Taking any antibiotic can leave the doors open for yeast infection, gut problems and other health issues caused by unwanted bacteria (or yeasts) taking over where healthy bacteria used to thrive, before the antibiotics killed them off.

Imagine healthy bacteria like guards in front of the castle gate.

 They keep good and bad actors in check as they cross in and out of the castle walls. If there's an unwanted, rowdy and dangerous visitor in the caste, antibiotics can go in and smoke it out--but they also do all the guards in as well.

Now who's minding the castle?

Nobody...and any straggler parasite, ruffian fungus or no-good varmit bacteria wanting into the castle, can now walz in and set up shop wherever he or she pleases.

That is what can happen when yeasts, parasite and other unhealthy opportunists set up shop in your body post-antibiotics.

What to do, what to do?

Enter the lowly onion. You can harness the sulphur power of the onion (or garlic) with this simple home remedy.

Simple Sinus Remedy

Basically, you chop up an onion and inhale the vapors from it.

That's it.

Yes your eyes will water, and your nose will run...but that is the whole point of the exercise. You want your nose to run.

You want those hellish onion vapors to get up into your sinuses (you do have four pairs of them, after all) and flush out the bacteria and mucus that can harbor infection.

If the vapors are too strong for you, then you can try simmering a sliced onion in a saucepan with two cups of water--inhaling the steam that comes off of the saucepan as it simmers.

Careful that you don't inhale the steam too close to the pan, however, as you could wind up singing your nose or burning things you don't want burned.

Act Fast

When you are getting stuffy, congested, have allergies kicking you around, or think you have the early warning signs of a sinus infection--reach for an onion, first.

With any home remedy, start addressing your health issue as soon as you feel it "coming on".

The longer you wait, the more stubborn it gets to treat sinus or other infections, and the more likely it becomes that your home remedy will not work effectively.

And lastly, if your condition does not improve, you run a fever or have other signs of infection setting up serious shop in your body, be sure to consult your health care practitioner for additional treatment options.

It's Your Turn

Go ahead and give this a shot, and let me know how things work for you...and be sure to forward this article to someone you think can benefit from it.

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