Honey and Lemon for Instant Vox

As rarely as I sing, I've noticed that green tea seems to have a positive effect on my throat. Maybe it's simply the warm water, relaxing it.

What I can tell you is that my wife says that switching from coffee w/ sugar to green tea w/ honey in the morning had a beneficial impact on her voice. She's currently singing and performing 10 shows a week. Coming from the lady spinning up side down at the end of a rope 40 feet above the stage while belting, I'm tempted to believe that there is something to it. ;)

She also has her own home-made medicine which is a mix of honey, lemon and ginger roots in warm water. I may be forgetting other ingredients, it's been a while since she had a cold.

There is one semi-secret last resort solution among singers, when they MUST perform and their voice has given up on them - one which makes me glad not to be a vocalist.

I don't remember the actual name of the medication, but it has to be administered via the back end of your digestive tube. 

It works, but as a last resort. Don't expect to use it two days in a row, because you're essentially performing on the emergency tank when you really need to recover. It created quite a stir among my singer friends when they were taken off the market in Canada a few years ago. I think they're back now...

At one point I had some severe sinus infections going on and I had a regular gig as a vocalist. It felt like someone was punching me in the temple constantly. My doc gave me some nasal spray steroids that he had a bunch of samples of. That stuff was INTENSE. It really worked well but it was highly addictive. Found myself craving it after the infection went away.

Just thinking about it makes me want some.

:-/

I used to find eating oranges very good when my throat was sore and I had to sing. That formed some kind of a protecting film in my throat.
Alcohol can be risky, because it actually damages the mucosa.
In general, the weak point of alcohol as a flu remedy is that it may make your sleep so deep that you snore (more than normally) and your nose gets stuffed. Snoring and not being able to breathe through your nose during the first two nights when the flu tries to attack guarantees the flu will get bad and really hit your respiratory tract.
My cure for flu is ibuprofen, garlic, vitamin-C and most importantly: Whatever it takes, keep you nose open. Aspirin, codein and those "traditional" ones  are not nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, thus they do nothing to inflammation.

Vicks, nasal steroids, whiskey in the lemon tea, green-tea, Brandy, and Rain's 'proven' warm-water-blend!

All at the same time... in a pitcher!

Stir well.

:-D