Carrots are one of those versatile vegetables that you can easily find in any housewife's grocery basket. It is added to the first and second courses, used to prepare vitamin drinks and desserts. Carrots are truly indispensable as a source of beta-carotene and a dietary but tasty product. But its advantages do not end there - carrots are known as one of the most readily available components of home remedies. Traditional medicine recommends using carrot juice for the common cold. It is worth finding out how useful and safe this method of treatment is.
Carrots and runny nose
Many traditional medicine recipes seem just perfect. To cure your nose, just go to the kitchen, peel the carrots you like and prepare a healing remedy. But how do you do it right? Can carrot juice be harmful if dripped into the nose? It is necessary to find answers to these questions before starting treatment.
First of all, it is worth looking at what constituents of carrots can make it useful for a cold. The vegetable contains:
- B vitamins;
- vitamins K, PP;
- vitamin A precursor beta-carotene;
- calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc and sodium.
In addition, carrots, along with onions and garlic, are leading in the content of phytoncides - substances that can destroy and suppress the growth of pathogens. This property allows traditional healers to recommend carrot medicines for the common cold.
However, not every cold can be treated with carrots. This folk remedy is suitable for eliminating the symptoms of inflammation with a cold. If the patient is allergic, the nose is damaged as a result of a burn or mechanical impact, there are disorders of the autonomic nervous system (edema due to increased blood circulation in the nasal concha), carrot juice is unlikely to help. But even with a cold, patients who note individual sensitivity to carrots may face unpleasant consequences in the form of an allergic reaction.
Carrot juice, even with a cold, is only an auxiliary treatment, it will not help to cope with a severe infection.
A runny nose must be treated in a complex way, using nasal lavage, if necessary - antiviral, immunomodulatory agents, local antiseptics. Despite its availability, carrot juice cannot replace all medications and procedures.
Recipes
How to use carrot-based products to benefit from the treatment? It is necessary to follow the rules of preliminary preparation and follow the recipes of traditional medicine, which will be presented below.
Preliminary preparation
Take a ripe vegetable that is not affected by pests, rot. It should be large enough, attractive in appearance, fresh, without unpleasant odor. It is best if the carrots are warmed to room temperature, as the juice should not be cold.
Wash the carrots by removing any clumps of soil, cuttings on the root vegetable itself, and green shoots that appear during the spring months when stored for a long time. Peel, wash again, pat dry with paper towel.
Take a grater - large or small, grind the root crop with it. Use clean cheesecloth to strain the resulting juice, removing large pieces of vegetable pulp. One procedure does not require a large amount of juice, the main thing is its purity, the pleasant smell of fresh carrots.
Preparation of the medicine
- Fresh Juice.
Place 3 drops of pure carrot juice in each nostril in turn. Repeat up to 4 times throughout the day.
- With the addition of oil.
Take refined vegetable oil (best of all, sunflower oil), mix with fresh juice in equal amounts, lubricate each nostril from the inside three times a day.
- With the addition of oil and water.
Dilute the juice in water in a 1: 2 ratio, then mix the resulting liquid with refined vegetable oil in a 1: 1 ratio. Drizzle 3 drops 3 times a day.
It is not only the composition that is important, but also the position of the body during the administration of the drug. Lying on the bed, tilt your head back. Instill the product in the required amount. Remain lying down for a few more minutes.
Contraindications
When should you not use carrot juice? There are several main contraindications:
- allergy;
- the presence of mucosal injury;
- childhood.
The juice obtained from processing carrots is often described as being safe. But if you are allergic directly to carrots or have allergic diseases (for example, allergic rhinitis), it is better to refrain from treatment with it. The same applies to the treatment of rhinitis in children; the juice can be used only with the approval of a pediatrician. A child cannot always complain of discomfort, itching and pain, which requires extreme caution in using traditional medicine recipes in childhood.
In case of injury to the mucous membrane, not only a focus of inflammation appears on its surface, but also an area of violation of integrity - a kind of "gateway" for infection. At home, it is impossible to achieve sterilization of juice without destroying useful substances along with microbes.
Carrot-based drops can be replaced by smearing with a cotton swab.
This method is safer, suitable for colds and allows you to quickly treat the mucous membrane without experiencing discomfort.
Traditional medicine recipes will only benefit if you correctly assess the indications and contraindications, remember to be careful in treatment. If you are not sure that drops based on carrot juice will be safe and help with a cold, you should consult your doctor in advance. The use of carrot juice does not exclude other methods of treating the common cold.
