Siddha Herbal Remedies for Common Cough and Cold

There are excellent remedies that can be made using Siddha herbs to treat cough and cold. I will explain below some of the herbs and preparations.

Adathoda Zeylanica

Adathoda or adathodai is the herb for the lungs. It is used in treating almost all ailments that afflict the lungs like asthma, tuberculosis, wheezing, etc.

Athimathuram

A decoction of adhimathuram bark soothes the throat and relieves dry cough.

Thippili or Piper Longum

This is an excellent expectorant and brings out the phlegm in chest.

Common symptoms of Cough

Cough with expectoration, phlegm in chest, pain in chest while coughing, sore throat due to irritating cough, slight rise in temperature at times.

Adathoda decoction or kudineer

Collect a couple of adathoda leaves and fry them with honey. Add powdered thippili, thalisapathiri (Taxus baccata) and athimathuram 4 gm each to the fried leaves and add 500 ml of water. Let the water boil and reduce to a fourth of its volume. Remove from heat and let it cool. 50 ml of this decoction three times a day is the standard dosage. Prepare the decoction fresh each day.

Adathoda syrup

Collect 200 gm of adathoda leaves and cut them to small pieces. Boil them in 2.5 litres of water and reduce to 75 ml. Filter out the leaves. Add 200 gm of sugar to this decoction and boil the water again to a syrupy consistency. Remove from heat and let it cool. Take 15 ml of this syrup with warm water three times a day.

Some of the preparations available at Siddha pharmacies are ‘thalisaathi choornam’, ‘kasthuri karuppu’, ‘ pavala parpam’ etc.

Common symptoms of Cold

Sneezing, postnasal discharge, stuffy nose, sore throat, cough are some of the common symptoms.

Pepper Decoction for Cold

4 gm of powdered pepper is added to 450 ml of water and heat. Reduce to one fourth volume. The dosage is 40-50 ml three times a day. This is also useful for pain in abdomen.

Thirikadugu

To prepare this lehyam, take dried ginger, pepper and thippili of equal quantity by weight say 50 gm each. Also take cumin seeds, cardamom seeds, cloves 25 gm each. Powder all of these separately. Prepare a syrup after adding 200 gm of palm candy to this combination. On this reaches a syrupy consistency add 200 ml of ghee and 40 ml honey. Standard dosage is 3 gm twice a day after food.

Neerkovai maathirai

This preparation is available in Siddha pharmacies. Take two of these tablets in a plate and add few drops of warm water. Grind the tablets to a fine paste with your fingers. Apply the paste on forehead and temples. This is said to clear retention of fluids in the sinuses and relieve heavy headedness.

These are some of the Siddha home remedies prepared with Siddha herbs for cough and cold.

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