Darkoshi

It's a cold rainy winter Saturday. I'm chilly. It's a perfect time for drinking tea.

But do I want to make myself some tea? Nope, it is too much trouble. It is a hot drink that I'll have to let sit a long time till it's cooled enough not to burn my mouth. It's an unhealthy sugary drink, because even the ones that taste all right plain, I prefer sweet. It's a hot sugary drink that takes effort to make, and which will end up making me need to pee more than usual.

I'll stick to cold water, thank you very much.

Thinking through this, I realize that despite having a cabinet full of teas, I'm simply not a tea drinker. Maybe that is *why* I have a cabinet full of teas - because I hardly ever drink them!

I mean sure, given a choice between coffee and tea, I'll take tea because coffee I can't even. And given a choice between black tea and herbal, I'll take herbal because I can do black, but only with even more sugar to mask the bitterness; I don't actually *like* black tea.

I have nostalgic memories of drinking herbal teas as a child. When it's the right temperature and amount of sweetness, it can taste quite good. And there are so many flavors to choose from!

But still, given a choice between making myself tea or pouring myself a glass of cold water, the latter usually wins.

I have a theory that drinking tea - any kind of flavorful-hot-steaming-watery tea, including herbal teas - can alleviate my symptoms when I'm having an allergy attack. It's a theory I've had for quite some time.

I haven't tested it in a systematic way, as it's not usually convenient* to make a cup of tea whenever I'm having an attack. But various teas have definitely helped on some occasions.

I recalled this theory after reading this page about 5 Native American allergy remedies, 4 of which are herbal teas. (The other one is elderberries... hmmm, that is worth doing some research on.)

*such as when I'm about to go to bed, or about to leave for work. Or when I wake up sneezing in the middle of the night. Or when there won't be easy access to a bathroom, as drinking tea makes me need to pee.

As it isn't always convenient to drink tea, I ordered some butterbur capsules. Research studies go both ways on the effectiveness of treating rhinitis with butterbur. I figured that trying it out myself, especially before my symptoms get to the very bad stage, couldn't hurt.

Last night, right before dinner, I took the first butterbur capsule. During dinner, my nose got runny. An hour later, my nose wasn't runny anymore and my throat was feeling thick and constricted. It is similar to having a sore throat, but without the soreness. This may be due to:
- the butterbur drying out the mucous in my nose and throat, as could be expected from an allergy treatment.
- maybe just coincidence. Maybe I am coming down with a sore throat.
- maybe I am somewhat allergic to butterbur itself.

My throat still feels thick this morning. I definitely want it to get back to normal, before I try out another capsule.

The capsules have a distinct, sharp peppery smell. Based on this, it would be fairly easy to distinguish between butterbur and a placebo. I wonder whether that had any effect on the research studies. Maybe butterbur worked better than placebo, as the people taking it could tell it wasn't a placebo. In other words, maybe that increased the placebo effect, compared to the placebo.