Patient Hygiene
Properly speaking, hygiene is not a therapy, but by contributing to the patient’s well-being, it has a healing effect all the same. Measures as simple as good physical hygiene (rest, airing out the room, and so forth) and good mental hygiene (stress reduction, elimination of noises, establishing inner calm) spare the strength of the patient and thereby support the task on which the body is working: healing. Rather than fighting against problems that can cause fatigue, such as dealing with the cold, the body can devote all its energy to fighting against the illness. The body’s forces will be concentrated rather than scattered dealing with a variety of issues.
So what are some of these hygiene measures we can utilize?
During a fever, great demands are made on the patient’s forces. A great deal of energy is expended to permit the healthy escalation of metabolic activity as well as that of the immune system’s defenses. It is therefore greatly preferable that the patient rest rather than pursuing his usual activities. By doing this, his energies will all be concentrated on a single goal.
Rest—rest in bed—is therefore compulsory. The patient should be comfortably settled in a horizontal position. There should be plenty of covers so that he can add more if he feels a chill, something that is quite common during the onset of illness.
The room temperature should be pleasant. It should not be too cold, which will force the body to expend needless energy trying to stay warm; nor should it be too hot, which will exhaust the patient for no good purpose.
Recommendations for getting plenty of rest are not restricted to just the body; the mind, too, needs to take it easy. The room should be peaceful, which means sheltered as much as possible from the hubbub of daily life and noise. Distractions such as radio, television, and electronic games should be avoided, as they will subtract from the patient’s strength without offering anything positive in return with respect to healing. Inner tranquillity, or at least a little peace of mind, will promote and encourage the unrestricted performance of the body’s organic processes. The people around the patient can contribute to this state by remaining calm and confident themselves.
AIR CIRCULATION
The room in which the patient is resting should be aired out on a regular basis. The patient needs oxygen and, therefore, clean, pure air. The body is working at an elevated rhythm and expelling large amounts of gaseous waste that are harmful to the body. The bad breath of those suffering from illness is evidence of this intense elimination of poisons. When it evaporates, the perspiration covering the patient’s skin also spreads waste products in a volatile form throughout the room. In combination with those released from the lungs, they contribute to creating the strong, disagreeable odor that characterizes the poorly aired rooms of sick people.
When the room is being ventilated, which should occur every few hours, precautions should be taken to ensure that the patient doesn’t become cold.
HYDRATION
A patient burning with fever can easily do without food, but she must drink. The ideal beverage for those suffering from fever is water.
Patients will need to replace the fluids they are losing through perspiration and urination. Sufficient fluid in the tissues is essential for cellular exchanges to take place properly and for the metabolism to function correctly. A dehydrated body functions in slow motion and is ill equipped to defend itself.
Regular water intake also reduces the concentration of toxins in the bloodstream and the cellular fluids, lessening their ability to damage the tissues. Abundant intake of liquids also makes it possible for the body to transport the wastes to the excretory organs where they can be evacuated from the body. If the quantities of sweat and urine are reduced because of a lack of liquid, the amount of waste the body eliminates will also be reduced.
A continuous transit of liquid has both a vitalizing and cleansing effect and is necessary for the body to mount the best defense against an illness. The beverages used for this purpose should be non-nutritious, because the body’s digestive abilities are weakened during a fever. They should not provide an additional intake of toxins either, as is the case with coffee, black tea, and commercial sodas.
The beverages that are recommended during the course of a fever are therefore:
Water. This can be either tap water or bottled spring water. It should be drunk cold or at room temperature, depending on the patient’s preference. The patient should trust her instincts and drink as much as she wants. If the individual is drinking too little, she should be encouraged to drink; regularly offer her a glass of water over the course of the day.
Herbal Teas. Although they contain a variety of substances from the medicinal plants they are brewed from, herbal teas generally lack any nutrients (as long as they are not sweetened with sugar). They have a pleasant aroma and taste that, depending on the case, can have a soothing or stimulating effect. The most highly recommended herbal teas to drink during a fever are those with linden, mint, verbena, and chamomile.
CLEANLINESS
A feverish patient can release several quarts of sweat a day (in comparison to the 2 or 3 cups worth that a healthy person generally excretes). This perspiration is also more charged with wastes than ordinarily because of the body’s efforts to detoxify itself. These wastes will quickly soak into the pajamas and bed sheets.
To avoid having the patient lying in the wastes that have been expelled through the skin and, more importantly, to avoid reabsorption of these toxins by prolonged contact, it is essential that the patient regularly wash herself and change what she has been wearing. The sheets on the patient’s bed should be replaced by clean ones as often as necessary. This will increase the patient’s comfort and also prevent reabsorption of the wastes that were most recently expelled.
Here, too, precautions should be taken to avoid the patient becoming too cold while the bed is being remade or while she is changing her clothes.
MOVEMENT
The desire to be moving or to be doing something does not generally appear during the first two phases of fever. During the fever’s onset and the time when it spikes to its highest temperature, the patient feels sapped by the illness and usually just wants to remain lying down above all else. The desire to get moving reappears most often during the third stage, the time when the body’s temperature is returning to normal.
While remaining in bed and resting during the course of a short fever (such as the flu, which usually lasts three to four days) is beneficial because it allows the patient to save his strength, this is not true for fevers that last longer. The spikes and drops in temperature that are characteristic of the second and third stages of a fever can occur repeatedly for a week or more. Remaining confined to bed for a period that long can have adverse consequences.
The body’s metabolic activities slow down during a prolonged absence of any physical activity. Breathing, circulation, and cellular exchanges will occur at a slower rate and with less intensity. This, in turn, creates a sense of fatigue that engenders a loss of enthusiasm and tone. To fight the forces of inertia and keep the gears of the body’s engine in good working order, modest physical activity may be called for.
Movement has a stimulating effect on all the body’s organic functions. The heart beats with greater intensity, which activates the blood circulation, which, in turn, permits irrigation of the depths of the body’s tissues. The lungs breathe more deeply creating better oxygenation. Exchanges are encouraged and toxins are more effectively broken down and eliminated. In short, we could say that external movement (muscle contraction) stimulates internal movement (metabolic activities).
Consequently, a little movement is sometimes necessary over the course of an illness before healing is complete. Taking a few steps back and forth in the bedroom or walking up and down the hall will allow the patient to activate his metabolism. This brings the body out of the state of stagnation and lethargy that occurs by remaining immobile for too long and triggers renewed activity in organ function and the body’s immune system.
The patient should move around just long enough to get the body stimulated but no more. Extending activity beyond this point will simply be exhausting.
INTESTINAL CLEANSING
Encouraging intestinal cleansing is only necessary for those patients suffering from constipation. Intestines that have not been emptied for two or three days will be filled with wastes. As we have seen, during a fever the body’s efforts are aimed at burning off and eliminating anything that is foreign to it, in other words, the wastes, wherever they may be located in the body. The wastes imprisoned in the intestines will not be exempt. These stagnant intestinal wastes are even more harmful to the body at this time, because the fever will raise the temperature of the intestines, which only encourages the fermentation and putrefaction of the fecal matter thereby increasing the quantity of poisons in the body.
The intestinal poisons must be neutralized and eliminated, which requires intensive labor on the body’s part as the intestines can easily contain from 2 to 4 pounds of material. Burning away these wastes also requires an intensification of metabolic activity, which has repercussions on body temperature. As long as these wastes remain in the body, the fever will be pushed higher (or at least remain at its upper levels).
In this situation, the simplest means of providing relief to the body consists of intentionally emptying the intestines. The strength that will be saved by doing this can then be made available for destroying germs and cleansing the biological terrain. The immune system can concentrate all its forces on microbes rather than on wastes that are easy to eliminate.
The laxatives used to empty the intestines should be mild. A strong laxative will cause too much irritation to the intestines. The body will then react forcefully to the additional attack, causing the fever to climb higher.
A laxative can be mild and still be quite effective. Those whose action is most easy to tolerate include:
Castor Oil. While most laxatives work by stimulating the peristaltic activity of the end of the colon, castor oil works on the small intestine. In the past castor oil was taken by the spoonful and swallowed straight. Because of its extremely unpleasant taste, it has created bad memories for generations of children. The obstacle posed by its foul taste is no longer any hindrance since it is now available in capsules. One dose should be all that is required, but the dosage depends on the size of the capsules. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Alder Buckthorn. The bark of this common tree has laxative properties that are so gentle it can even be tolerated by pregnant women. Using a mother tincture rather than tablets or pills makes it easier to tailor the dosage more precisely for the individual’s needs. Take 40 to 70 drops of the mother tincture mixed with water. It will take several hours to take effect.
Golden Shower Tree (Cassia fistula). This is a mild laxative that is pleasant to take. The plant produces a fruit (which can be found inside the pod); three slices of this sweet fruit should be sufficient to stimulate the intestines. This plant can also be prepared as a tea or decoction; add 1¾ ounces of crushed pods to a pint of water and boil for ten minutes.
Mallow. Mallow is a gentle, nonirritating laxative that is recommended for cases of chronic constipation (atonic or spasmodic), especially when the digestive tract is inflamed. It can be taken as an infusion: 1 ounce of flowers or leaves should be added to 1 quart of water and left to steep for ten to twelve minutes. This will provide 1 or 2 cups of tea. Mallow is also available in tablet form: dosage is generally 2 or 3 tablets; follow manufacturer’s instructions. If using a mother tincture, put 20 to 50 drops in a glass of water.
These are only a few suggestions out of many options. If the patient customarily uses another plant or preparation and knows what the proper dose is for a gentle but effective laxative action, by all means continue using that preparation. Because it is already familiar to the patient, she will find it easier to work with.
Summary
Good patient hygiene involving rest, calm, a well-aired room, and so forth contributes greatly to the patient’s well-being and thereby to his cure.