How to breeze through the chickenpox

A kid in my 9-year-old son's class got the chickenpox, and a week later he had them too. The difference: while that other kid suffered enormously, my son totally breezed through the whole thing.

I attribute part of it to the fact that he's not vaccinated and therefore has a perfectly functioning immune system -- he almost never gets sick, and when he does catch a cold, he usually gets over it in two days.

However, I also applied some home remedies I had researched, and they worked sheer miracles. There was almost NO itching, NO discomfort... by day 3 he already felt great again, by day 7 he was back in school.

Here's how I did it:

Right when the rash started, I gave him 1,500 mg of vitamin C and 1,000 mg of lysine, each 3 x/day. Lysine makes a lot of sense because the chickenpox virus belongs to the family of herpes viruses, and it's well known that lysine helps with herpes outbreaks.

You get lysine tablets in every drugstore in the vitamin aisle, but the pills are HUGE, so I ground them up to powder and mixed the powder into a small glass of fruit smoothie. My son loves those smoothies, so it wasn't hard to make him drink this, and the fruit taste covers up the bitterness of the lysine completely.

(My smoothie recipe: 2 cups of water, 1 ripe banana, ca. 2 cups of mixed frozen berries -- blend.)

The lysine totally keeps the itching down. I also gave him 1-2 baths a day with 2 cups of Epsom salt (also available at drugstore) to a bathtub full of warm (not hot!) water. You have to swish it around with your hand until it dissolves.

For localized itching, I hydrated some bentonite clay (you get that at the health food store, it's a fine powdery substance that gets very clay-like when you add water to it) and smeared it on the blisters. INSTANT itch relief!!! Done before bedtime, it made him able to easily sleep through the night.

I should probably mention that the first night of his illness, he got a pretty high fever (102.9) that I brought down slightly with cold compresses on his forehead and calves. The calf wrap is a great folk remedy I learned from my mom -- just soak two small towels in ice-cold water and wring them out very well until they're just damp, and wrap them around the patient's calves (you might want to cover them with another towel so the bed doesn't get wet). Perfect way to bring down a fever.

Don't use any OTC children's medicines for fever!!! Remember, fever is your friend; it kills the virus, so you should only try to keep it within limits but not suppress it!

Also, very important: for the first 3 days I tried to avoid acidic foods in his diet, since they increase the itching. That means, no tomatoes in any shape or form (incl. ketchup and pasta sauce), no spicy foods, no sugar, no milk or other dairy.

Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh apple worked very well, he could tolerate eggs and toast, all sorts of green vegetables, carrots, bananas, etc. Drinks: just plain water or gentle herbal teas like chamomile, no soda, no fruit juices.

Now usually he's pretty whiny when he's not feeling well, so I'd been quite apprehensive when he got the chickenpox and figured I was in for a week of hell... but nothing!!! I was completely awed how well he did; he wasn't complaining or being whiny at all.

If your kid ever comes down with the chickenpox, I highly recommend this approach. If you have any questions, just ask away.