Soothe Your Sore Throat Naturally with Cayenne Pepper

I woke up in the middle of the night itchy, hot, generally uncomfortable and unable to sleep with a sore throat/cold I caught from my twin nieces (they were real cute though). First I took a hot shower for the steam. I had tried the cayenne remedy before but completely forgot (or blocked it out) until my boyfriend reminded me. I followed the instructions in your video pretty closely and did 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper in maybe 4 oz of warm water. I gargled the whole thing in separate gulps for 10 seconds each til it was gone. The great thing about this remedy is that the effect is tri-fold:

1) the (mild) discomfort of gargling cayenne water kind of makes you forget about the sore throat in the first place;

2) it relieves the soreness once you regain feeling in your throat; and

3) it completely clears out your sinuses (had to blow my nose several times and hocked up junk from my throat).

Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I know you will be absolutely overcome with joy to learn that I am feeling better! ?? No?

However, down to business. The "Secret to a Happy Life Without a Sore Throat" I am now at liberty to reveal IS .........wait for it .... Chicken Noodle Soup with Cayenne Pepper or, as my better half would say, "Canine Pepper"! The results don't lie!

Having, in quest of appropriate home remedies and undergone numerous, unselfish, self-experiments on behalf of fellow (and fellowesses) EC, sore-throat- sufferers, tried several alternatives, including Manuka Honey lozenges and warm/hot water gargling, I now find myself unreservedly supporting the CNSCP remedy.

Yesterday, my can of 500 gm / one pound Chicken Noodle soup was decanted into a bowl and laced with a half teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper, stirred furiously and then split in half. Half went into the 'fridge for to-day and the other half was stirred again whilst being gently heated on the stove's top element until bubbles appeared, then removed and allowed to cool a bit.

Consumed whilst just hot enough to be tolerated, the initial shock of the CP gradually gave way to reluctant acceptance whilst muttering the mantra "It hurts, so, ipso facto, it must be doing me Good"!!

(Who was it claimed that "Whatever does not destroy me, makes me stronger"?) (Clue.. his name begins with an "N.."/ can't spell it! ).

Just two applications of the above protocol seem to have had the desired effect. I strongly suspect that I caught this malady from a cafe visit a while ago. Such misery from one innocent visit! I have always been susceptible to catching unwanted things from suspect cups BTW. Lesson for you too! Maybe take my own cup/mug next time and save the planet at the same time?

As a Certified Old Geezer, I am permitted to pass on a few of life's other hard- earned wrinkles on smoothing out the humps and hollows of one's daily toil.

For instance, now that our cold, windy, wet season has graced us with its presence, I am having lots of trouble with slugs and snails in our vegetable patch. Also, we are blessed with a thingy called a "Pear Slug/Peach Slug" which, I recently learned, is actually not a slug at all but a giant aphid! Anyway, whatever, they do a whole lot of damage but can be trapped quite successfully if one places a number of up-turned, coconut half-shells in between one's vegetables. I used to favour plastic pots and then switched to Terra-cotta/clay ones but these upturned half coconut shells are the bees' knees. Must check DAILY.

Again, there is a Chinese invention of a circular plastic protector for guarding against slug and snail attacks. It boasts an arching-over-outward-facing rim such that the critter can not negotiate upside down. Awesome!! Ingenious!! Works well and all these wrinkles tested by yours truly - I kid you not.

Next, if using a firelighter, I try to source an organic one (or as close as I can anyway). I have more success if I place it in the middle of four layers of newspaper. Seems to hold the heat better. When I was young a century ago, tramps in the park would keep warm under layers of newspaper.

Growing old is not for the faint-hearted but some of my wrinkles are useful ones!!

Cheers from Down Under

For two days now I have suffered with the worst sore throat of my adult life. The pain was frightening. I was unable to speak or swallow and coughing caused terrible discomfort. I dosed heavily with Oil of Oregano and garlic. I took aspirin and finally my sons wanted me to take an ibuprofen and though I distrust and have read negative reports about it, I took one. Then I did the 3% hydrogen peroxide gargle, twice in a row with warm water rinse. I came back to my room and found the pain unchanged, roaring worse than before. I was afraid I might have damaged throat tissues. I came back to Earthclinic and read the cayenne for sore throat testimonies. I have a big bottle of the capsules. I opened one in the cup of ginger and honey tea my sons had made me. Swallowed a few largish swigs. Eyewatering pain. But in a few minutes it seemed to quiet down. I stirred and swallowed more. Right now...7 or 8 minutes later I feel better than I have for 2 days. Throat still aches but not in the same desperate way. I will continue tonight and have high hopes for tomorrow being a much better day. Thank Goodness.

Thank Earthclinic!! X

Cayenne works! My local co-op has some really hot stuff, with a much higher scoville rating than regular cayenne. At first I gargled by drinking out of a glass however my mouth was on fire! I then thought of this trick: Get a drinking straw and suck up some of the cayenne water, then use your finger to plug the end you drink from, creating a vacuum. The water stays in the straw and you can tilt your head back and bypass your tongue! It worked great and the cayenne has already helped my throat after 15 minutes. I used a little water at a time and swallowed afterward.

Update: The next week my husband got the same symptoms as me, and then my co-worker was confirmed with strep, so it seems quite certain that it was strep we were dealing with. I gave my husband the same cayenne gargle that I took, at the beginning stages, and he had the same response as me--initial terrible pain, but then it REALLY HELPED him a lot. His resolved very quickly though--he only did 2 gargles (evening and morning), and then the sore throat was gone. His fever was gone within 1 day, and the whole thing was gone within 2 days. I also had a well-matching homeopathic remedy for him, and very high doses of vitamin D, and zinc, vitamin C, lots of fluids, and lots of sleep. I'm not exactly sure what did the trick, but the cayenne gave temporary relief if nothing else.

This is not one of my creations. I saw it here in Earthclinic and tested it, since I am a researcher. If you have sore throat, add 1/16th or 1/8th of a teaspoon cayenne, in a full glass of water and gargle. If it does not pass in first time, repeat in about two hours. It is really an amazing curement.

I started feeling a sore throat coming on Friday. Saturday morning I had it pretty bad. I remembered EARTHCLINIC so I looked up a cure and started the Cayenne pepper treatment that morning. I frequently gargled throughout the day with a little bit form a glass half full with water and about 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne. Sometimes I would swallow just a tiny bit. I found that gargling was more effective if I used my voice box at the same time. This treatment was accompanied by prayer for healing Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure which was more effective, but by Saturday night my sore throat was completely healed. I kept up the gargling Sunday just to make sure. Cayenne pepper is my new friend!

I had a mild sore throat for a week and it was not going away. I mixed 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and 1 cup of hot water and gargled every 2 hours and after 2 days it is completely gone. Also I do not feel weak anymore, since I think I may have had an infection when my throat was sore. I found the key thing to be is consistency, don't just do it once or twice because you immediately feel better. It can take time to completely remove whatever is bothering your throat.

I tried your q-tip method for a sore throat that I woke up with this morning. Wow, I felt better in 15 minutes! The pain was worse on my left side of my throat completely disappeared. I repeated the cayenne about half an hour later.

Okay, so I rolled a dry q-tip in organic cayenne and then rolled it as far back on my tongue as I could. Ughhh... be careful, that made me gag. It didn't burn like I thought it would though. It was a weirdly pleasant sensation as the cayenne started hitting the back of my throat. The second time I did it, I wet the q-tip first with water and then rolled it in cayenne to get more cayenne on the q-tip. And this time I rolled it about 3/4 of the way back on my tongue. Awesome! Gonna do this a few more times today just to make sure.

I've had a sore throat for 3 days. I've been awake since 3:00am barely being able to swallow water without pain. I read some cayenne pepper reviews on Earthclinic and tried the OJ and cayenne cure ( 1 cup OJ with pulp and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper). I whisked it together and slowly sipped it through a straw. I am happy to report that my throat felt better within minutes without any burning from the cayenne. I will do this again in a few hours.

This is a true account on my part: I had been battling a particularly bad case of strep throat with antibiotics and motrin 'round the clock. I had read that cayenne can help strep, but I was skeptical so I didn't even try it.

After a week of continuing to feel miserable, I forced myself out of bed to go with my family out to eat at a restaurant, and for some reason, the vegetable soup sounded like the only thing I wanted. I had never eaten at this restaurant before, so little did I know that the soup was SPICY! I usually don't eat spicy things, but I forced myself to eat the soup...then something magical happened. With each painful bite, I could actually feel my strength returning. As I continued to eat the warm broth, my aches and pains subsided, and I felt better and better...way better than I had in a week! Why was this soup making me feel so good, I wondered? Then I remembered the suggestion to use cayenne pepper...and I wondered if the chef used it to spice up the soup. He insisted that he didn't, instead he used a hot sauce...a lot of it, lol. I asked if I could read what was on the bottle, so he ran to the back and grabbed it for me to read. When I looked at it, low and behold, the first ingredient was...cayenne pepper.

I was sold. This wasn't a case of the placebo effect, as all I wanted to do was eat. I didn't think that this soup would cure me when I ordered it, but in the end, it helped so much that I ended up naming it, the Magic Feel-Better Soup. Ha ha...I wonder if they changed the name after I called it that, but I haven't been back to check.

Interesting! A dash of Cayenne - and I mean less than a pinch! - in 1/4 cup hot water, cleared up a sore throat.

YES this does indeed work. I've been using the honey, lemon juice and cayenne pepper for 15 years now. A sore throat of course is the prelude to a cold and if you can stop it, then it either stops it from advancing all together or reduces the cold to a minor ailment without all the mucus buildup and the awful coughing and hacking, which during the present day COVID-19 pandemic, you don't want to be observed coughing in public. Put as much pepper in as you can stand as it will be more effective that way.

After suffering for four days with each day being worse than the last I finally got the nerve to try the cayenne pepper. I had tried the apple vinegar cider and the warm salt water gargle - both somewhat soothing but still leaving me miserable. There is a bad viral infection going around and I had talked to a few people who had similar experience and they said the sore throat lasted for up to two weeks. My throat was swollen along with tongue and had pain along jawline and neck. Also had earache on occasion. I already had the pepper flakes but decided to buy the powdered cayenne pepper. Read several of the recipes but went with 1/4 teaspoon to 1/2 cup of very warm water. Coated my lips with vaseline as someone recommended and gargled twice for about a minute each time. Yes it burns! However, after about two minutes you can feel it working. I gargled with the mixture about every 30 to 45 minutes for the evening. This morning I woke up and the swelling had decreased. It still hurts to swallow but not near as much. Teeth, jaw, sinus and tongue no longer ache. I want to post to let others know the misery can be reduced and almost eliminated with the cayenne pepper gargle.

There's a wicked virus going around now and everyone I know is getting a sore throat that comes and goes for at least 2 weeks. I started to get a sore throat yesterday (Friday) and went online to find the best cure for it and found the cayenne remedy.Started gargling yesterday afternoon with cayenne, 1/8 teaspoon in water, and then last night before bed. No sore throat this morning. I am going to keep it up several times a day for at least two more days just to make sure.

A severe sore throat hit me like a ton of bricks, all the sudden one morning--very severe, unbearable pain, and a fever came on within 12 hours. Based on a look in my throat, it could have been strep since there were streaks of white, but it's not like the strep that my kids have had, with spots of white, so I can't confirm with any certainty. I can just say that it knocked the living daylights out of me, and my throat felt like it was on fire.

I tried my usual, using homeopathy, which often stops it in it's tracks, but this one was stubborn and strong, and I wasn't able to find much of any relief, so I started looking here on Earth Clinic.

Here is what I tried before taking the plunge into the cayenne pepper. Most of these things gave some relief, but not significant or lasting. I have listed these in order of relief, with the best remedies at the top, except the cayenne which I will speak about afterward:

-onion poultice all around front and sides of the neck (slice a big onion thinly, place it on a thin cloth, warm it up to approx body temp, then bend your body forward and lift the cloth with onions up to your neck, and wrap it around. Secure with pins, or what I did was to wrap an old cashmere scarf around several times, to keep everything nice and warm.

-licorice tea (sip as needed)

-sinus rinse (which often goes down back of throat, plus I was getting a sinus infection within 1 day of the sore throat)--including salt, 1 drop of strong colloidal silver, 1 drop of grapefruit seed extract, and 3 drops of povidone iodine

-salt water gargles

Just to be thorough, I was also drinking massive amounts of fluids. Each day I drank about 2 quarts of homemade chicken broth, 2 quarts of water, and 1 quart of oatstraw and nettle infusion. I was not really eating because I felt so sick, so I used the opportunity to basically fast and get all the toxins out.

I also took enough magnesium supplementation to cause my stools to run, again, just to get those toxins out. Other supplements I was taking were: 1000 iu vitamin D (I'm very sensitive to it), lots of B-vitamins, multi-minerals, fish oil, probiotics, and about 1.5 tsp of camu camu powder for vitamin C.

I also took off work and my husband took the kids so that I could really rest.

When nothing was really bringing any lasting relief, I finally tried the cayenne pepper. I made it with 1/4 tsp to 1/4 cup water ratio. I also threw in a drop of strong colloidal silver, a drop of grapefruit seed extract, 4 drops of povidone iodine, and a couple drops of clove oil for numbing.

I rubbed Lansinoh all over my lips (the natural equivalent of vaseline), and I took a gulp-sized amount and gargled for as long as I could, and spit it out. Oh. My. God. The incredible PAIN this caused. I did not read about this anywhere here, and I actually have a pretty good tolerance for pain. My eyes were watering, and I was basically debilitated from pain for a full 2 minutes or so. BUT THEN, my throat felt better!! I had about 2 hours of reprieve before I felt that I needed to do it again!

Another interesting thing was that, during the painful part, the heat from the cayenne radiated into my ears. I felt like that was a good thing, since the throat, eustachian tubes, and sinuses are all connected.

As for the pain just after gargling, it has been gradually getting better, but not as fast as I wish.

Now for the past 24 hours, I've been repeating this every 2 hours or so (except while asleep). My fever broke during the night (after about 4 doses). I've been keeping up with the onion poultice on my neck also (replacing it twice a day), because I found that my throat got worse when I discontinued it at one point. I also continued the sinus rinses because I developed a sinus infection, and I found that it gave a slight irritation which made me sneeze a lot afterward, and that seemed to help my sinuses. I also continued to explore homeopathic remedies, and found minor relief, but nothing significant.

I'm not sure yet if this cayenne will be my final cure, but it gives me enough relief that it's bearable in the meantime, and the improvement has been slow and steady.

I had a severe sore throat last night so this morning I came on Earth clinic searching around for a home remedies...I saw where where quite a number of people say to use cayanne pepper to gargle..so I decided to try a 1 green tea bag in 8 ounces of hot water with 1 tsp of honeyand 1 tsp of cayenne pepper so basically a drink at Cayanne pepper and green tea ..so I let it cool down and sip on it ...and I have never seen anything work so fast ...within five minutes my sore throat pain went from a 10 to a 2 on the first cup.. I will be having another cup later.. I give it 5 yeas