The Newmans

I had my first foray into Chinese medicine on Tuesday.

I had unfortunately contracted a sore throat. Not one of those sore throats that sounds bad but isn’t too bad, but one where it hurts if you try to talk too much above a whisper, and with a voice to rival Andrew’s.

Anyway, I decided this would be the ideal opportunity to experiment with Chinese herbal lozenges of various descriptions. Judi personally recommended ‘Golden Throat Lozenge’. Even though she smokes and is pushing the range of a contralto due to a couple of vocal cord nodes (and the smoking), I was keen to try them.

The conclusion is that they are quite effective at soothing a sore throat, and give a slightly numbing effect. They don’t taste offensive, either. What with talking almost constantly, I decided that a five minute interval between lozenges was more than sufficient. My Kindy bilingual helper said, ‘You’d better go easy on those things’. When I asked why, she replied, ‘too many can make you high’, after which we established that they contain a stimulant. This was news to me, since I was fighting drowsiness, but I was more moderate in consumption afterwards.

The lady very kindly bought me what she said the Chinese use for sore throats; a ‘24 medicines’ in a drink-mix (no more than three a day - I asked ), honeysuckle leaves (to infuse), and ‘fat sea’ something, which are like small dates that swell when you put them in water.

On Wednesday my throat wasn’t quite as bad, and Thursday it was much better, but correspondingly later in the week I had a runny nose etc, so I’ve been looking forward to the weekend for a bit of a rest.