The Zen Garden

Essential oils- essences of herbs, flowers, fruit etc extracted from their source by various methods including steam distillation and solvent extraction. Usually it takes a huge amount of the plant to create a small bottle of essence, but the concentration of all that plant leads to a potent healing tool in many ailments (as long as you dilute them a bit, they can be very harsh on the skin)

More commonly used in aromatherapy, but starting to be more widely used in orthodox and pagan medicine.

Fast-acting Cold Remedy (nonalcoholic)
3/4 cup hot water
2-3 cc rice vinegar
10cc clover honey
3cc lemon juice
1 1/3 tsp red hot pepper sauce
1/2 cc concentrated Tabasco (red hot pepper sauce)

reheat in microwave with bag of green tea if cooled. Use spoon and teabag to stir up anything that settled to the bottom (DO NOT INHALE STEAM THROUGH NOSE!), and drink as quickly as possible without scalding self. Make sure to get the last remnants of pepper sauce and honey from teabag when finished drinking.

I tried this about four hours after drinking half a shot of Tabasco and generic red pepper sauce, when my sinuses started getting blocked again and my headache returned. I drank it in about a quarter hour, inhaling through my mouth and exhaling through my nose. I felt overheated and feverish/sweating for about eight minutes after finishing the drink, then felt much better, along with mostly-cleared sinises, no headfache, and no sign of cold-induced fatigue.

I'll update this if symptoms return anytime soon.

^and of course that was weeks ago.....

Right. Symptoms never returned, so I never updated it.