Last night I was awake for hours, coughing every three to five seconds while tossing and turning.
I got up three times to drink hot tea, but the teas didn’t work for more than a minute to soothe my cough, and once I lay down the wracking barking coughs returned.
I was out of aspirin and Tylenol and cough syrup.
I was also completely out of my trust natural remedies like unpasteurized honey, cayenne pepper and ginger.
Then at 4:30 a.m. I spied my bottle of castor oil sitting on the table beside my bed, and I had an idea.
I smooth castor oil on my face every night to moisturizer my skin and diminish wrinkles (and it works like a charm).I also use it in a compress to detox my liver twice a week. Sometimes I use it in my knees and feet to ease aches and pains, although after using it for a few months those pains disappeared, and now I only use it after a hard day of walking or hiking.
Remembering how wonderfully anti-inflammatory and deeply penetrating castor oil is, it occurred to me that maybe it could reduce the inflammation in my throat and lungs and give me some much needed cough relief!
I knew that if I drank castor oil in water, even a little bit, it would act as a powerful laxative, which I didn’t need.
But it occurred to me that a topical application on the skin might have a different effect.
I spread some drops of castor oil directly on the skin covering my throat and windpipe, and smoothed it down over my upper chest where it was achey.
To my astonishment, I instantly stopped coughing. Yes, instantly. I had been coughing every five seconds (I was counting), but the annoying scratchy tickle that signals the next round of coughs didn’t happen.
Within a few minutes of cough free bliss, I felt my breathing passageways open and it was far easier to breathe. Even breathing deeply didn’t initiate another coughing spasm.
I was soon drifting into sleep, quietly peaceful and feeling great relief.
When I awoke a few hours later and started to sit up and move around, I still didn’t start hacking. That one application of castor oil had stopped my coughing fits for more than 6 hours!
I felt I was finally on the mend.
I thought of all the times I could have used this simple, natural remedy with amazement.
- All those times when my cough medicine had stopped working but not enough time had passed to be able to take another dose.
- All those times when cough medicine didn’t get down into my bronchial tubes and lungs where it felt the cough was really coming from.
- All those times in a meeting or when I was teaching when I needed an instant cough stopper.
I realized that inexpensive, odourless and quick acting castor oil could have soothed away my breathing difficulties many times over the years even better than the expensive essential oils I was inhaling (although essential oils do smell wonderful and help open bronchial tubes for an hour or so, and some boost the immune system so well you recover quickly from illness).
In case you were wondering, castor oil soaks into the skin quickly so it won’t likely leave any stains on your clothing or sheets. It didn’t on mine.
So I present to you yet another amazing use for humble castor oil: a natural and quick cough remedy.
I am surprised no one else seems to be talking about this.
I hope this tip helps you as much as it has helped me.