Home Remedies for A Sore Throat

A sore throat is a condition in which the throat is inflamed from an infection or an allergy. This is characterized by a rough feeling in the throat, some difficulty and pain when you are swallowing, and sometimes can even be followed by a fever if the infection spreads. Most sore throats are a result of an upper respiratory tract infection.


This can occur when you breathe in a pathogen like a bacteria or fungus. As the organism falls in the mucus rich walls of the throat it starts to grow and damage the tissue cells of the throat. At this point, the body will immediately attack the invader and try and destroy it. However, this is not so easy. The body’s fighter cells are the white blood cells and the lymphocytes. These can quite easily destroy an infection within the body but the region of the throat or the surface tissue of the throat is technically outside the body. Therefore, white blood cells and lymphocytes have to travel through the blood stream, wriggle out of the blood vessels, and then move through the tissue until it reaches the offending pathogens. For this, the blood supply to the region of infection has to be increased and the tissue needs to swell up to increase the intracellular space for the white blood cells to wriggle through. This combined process is called inflammation.

This is something that you don’t really need to interfere with but to prevent the problem spreading to your lungs or interfering with your sleep, there are some treatments that you should undertake. The first step is to ensure that the invading pathogens are destroyed. Garlic is the first and most ideal weapon of choice against bacteria. It also has some limited use against viruses. Consume a whole bulb of garlic a day and this can act like a potent antibiotic. Bacteria and viruses that affect the upper respiratory tract are very sensitive to temperature changes. This is the reason why warm salt water gargles are so effective in dealing with an infection. They raise the ambient temperature in the throat high enough to kill the invaders.
The last part of the cure is to use some natural anti-inflammatories like ginger, turmeric, and chili. The active ingredients in all of these combined are strong enough to even break fevers. Use this to allow you some relief and give you some sleep.