Is it possible to go to the bathhouse with a cough?
The question of whether it is possible to take a steam bath when you have a cough cannot be answered unequivocally. On the one hand, this is a good replacement for warming medical procedures used to treat diseases of the respiratory system, on the other hand, heat exposure can harm a weakened body.
To avoid exacerbation of a cold, you need to go to the bathhouse when you have a cough without fever or when the disease is still in its initial phase.
Positive effect
The desire to go to the bathhouse with a cough is justified, because it has its advantages:
- The heated air dilates the bronchi, a person breathes easier, and the number of coughing attacks decreases.
- Under the influence of steam, sweating increases, which means that waste and toxins clogging the body are released. At elevated temperatures, interferon, an antiviral protein that blocks the spread of infection, is produced more intensively.
- High air humidity is useful against any type of cough. With a dry cough, the formation of sputum increases, it becomes thinner, which makes it easier to remove from the respiratory system. If you are bothered by a wet cough with phlegm, then the release of it from the airways is accelerated. It is not recommended to go to the bathhouse if you have a sore throat, as this is usually associated with a high temperature. But dryness or a slight sore throat, which is felt when the disease is just developing, can be eliminated in the steam room.
- The aroma of essential oils from heated oak and birch brooms helps to overcome a runny nose. The snot becomes thinner, its removal improves, and breathing normalizes.
- Massage with brooms accelerates blood circulation, relaxes muscles, and removes body aches. Immunity increases, and it becomes easier for the body to resist the disease.
In heat and humidity, the production of leukocytes increases by 15%. White blood cells are able to recognize and remember viruses so they can kill them when they enter the body.
The bath helps with acute respiratory diseases and viral infections, but only when the body temperature is less than 37°C.
Healing herbs used to prepare brooms and create aroma in the steam room will provide an additional relaxing, anti-inflammatory and disinfecting effect, and will also increase the overall tone of the body.
Contraindications and harm
When asked whether it is possible to go to the bathhouse if you have a cough, doctors do not always answer in the affirmative. There are factors that prohibit bath procedures. For example, if you have a severe headache when you have a cold, you should avoid steam treatments.
You cannot wash in a bathhouse with a high body temperature. The heart is already working at an increased rate, and hot air will only add to the load. In the best case, the body will weaken and will not be able to fight the illness; in the worst, a heart attack will occur.
A bath is contraindicated for a cold in its acute stage. Under the influence of high air temperatures, pathogenic microorganisms multiply faster. And this often leads to an exacerbation of the disease or complications, for example, bronchial asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis.
Attending bath procedures is not recommended for people suffering from tuberculosis, cancer or bronchial asthma. A bathhouse will not be able to alleviate these diseases. If you just want to take a steam bath, you should first consult with your doctor.
For infectious diseases such as herpes, doctors do not advise visiting the steam room. Under the influence of hot steam and high humidity, the virus will spread even faster.
Preparation for couples procedures
Breathing steam for medicinal purposes, especially when a person begins to cough, should be done using herbal infusions. Using a broom with medicinal plants for a dry cough is not as productive as passive inhalations.
It is much more convenient and effective to carry out this event in a bathhouse. Finding the right herb is easy. The pharmacy offers a wide selection of herbs and individual plants that help cleanse the pulmonary system:
- the most harmless for the body, but dangerous for viruses is chamomile;
- you can use thyme or sweet clover;
- Mint and lemon balm are suitable.
Used as an infusion. To do this, brew a steep decoction: 2 tbsp per 200 ml of water. l.
In addition to the decoction, it is recommended to take a new broom, which will contain 75% linden branches or 25% eucalyptus. The second option significantly helps with the occurrence of colds. Don't forget about essential oils.
If a child coughs
A bath for a child with a cough and runny nose is a separate case. Children's metabolism is more intense than that of adults. Therefore, they generate more heat per unit time. Also, babies have less developed sweat glands, so the mechanism for maintaining body temperature is less effective. A comfortable and safe temperature for adults can be dangerous for a child.
Pediatricians generally do not recommend taking children under two years old to the bathhouse. From the age of two, a child can soar. Hot air at this age is not dangerous for them, but it is of little benefit either. It is possible to talk about the healing effects of steam procedures on a child’s body only after he reaches the age of seven years.
Prevention of colds
In practice, it has been proven that a person who regularly visits a bathhouse or sauna gets sick much less often. If you follow the rules and use medicinal herbs, you can not only eliminate coughs, colds and other diseases of the pulmonary system, but also significantly increase immunity and cleanse the body of harmful substances.
As a preventative measure, going to the bathhouse will help prevent the occurrence of acute respiratory infections and runny nose. Bacteria and viruses will not be able to begin to develop in a strengthened body. The benefits of prevention are:
- activation of leukocytes, which is important for suppressing the inflammatory process;
- accelerated metabolism;
- normalization of blood circulation, oxygen supply to cells;
- cleansing of waste and toxins.
In the absence of contraindications, it is recommended to visit the bathhouse twice a month, and weekly during the cold season.
How to treat a cough in a bath
Before you start treating cough in a bathhouse, you need to prepare. First, brew tea from medicinal herbs (licorice root, thyme, medicinal chamomile, sweet clover) to drink before the bath, and then pour it over the stones while steaming. Essential oils based on fir, rosemary or eucalyptus will provide an additional effect.
You can’t go into the steam room right away; first you need to thoroughly warm up in the washing room. After your first visit, sit for a few minutes in the cool waiting room. Before the next visit, you need to pour the decoction over the stones again, and then massage for 10-15 minutes with a birch or eucalyptus broom, previously soaked in an infusion of medicinal plants.
There is no need to sit in the steam room for a long time. To treat a cough, two or three sessions of 5-7 minutes are enough.
After a bath, hot tea with ginger, lemon or honey is beneficial.
Before going to bed, it is advisable to wrap yourself up and sweat well. Following these recommendations will increase your chances of curing your cough.
When a bath is contraindicated
Before entering a room filled with heated steam, you need to make sure that such a shock will not harm the body.
Under no circumstances should you visit the bathhouse if you have the following problems:
- episodes of high blood pressure;
- history of strokes;
- fever;
- seizures;
- tuberculosis and whooping cough are at their peak;
- pathologies of the endocrine system;
- skin diseases;
- dilated varicose veins on the lower extremities.
It is strictly not recommended to visit the bathhouse for people with tumor tumors, as well as for those with a severe allergic reaction to steam. A cough deserves an additional caveat if it is a symptom of heart damage. Without the permission of a pediatrician, a child with serious physical illnesses should not be taken with you or exposed to high temperatures and humidity.
What is prohibited to do
You can visit the bathhouse if you have a cough, but you should avoid contrasting procedures - do not douse yourself with cold water and do not dive into an ice hole. The coolness of the dressing room will be enough. You should always take into account the weakening of the body and immediately leave the steam room if your health worsens.
If you have a cough, you should not drink alcohol in the bathhouse. Ethyl alcohol in combination with high air temperatures increases the load on the heart, and this can lead to a heart attack.
You should not take a steam bath just before going outside. You should visit the steam room for the last time half an hour before so that your body is dry and cool.
Prolonged contact with cold air is harmful, because temperature changes can cause a new round of disease.
The benefits of inhalation for cough
Each procedure must be effective and appropriate. To avoid harm, steam inhalations are used when coughing. They are varied, but their main task is to relax the smooth muscles of the throat, relieve inflammation and reduce symptoms of the disease.
The main benefit of inhalation for coughing is that the steam directly affects the affected area. Conventional medications taken orally once they enter the body initially affect the gastrointestinal tract. This can lead to increased acidity and pain. When absorbed into the blood, some components of the drug become less active. By adding medicine or essential oils to inhalation, you can be completely confident in its direct effect.
It is important to initially decide what steam inhalations for coughs will be and what will be used. Recently, a nebulizer has become popular, but a simple method of treatment in the form of spending time over potato vapors should also not be excluded.
Treatment of cough in the steam room
There are many recommendations on how to treat a cough in a steam room. As a rule, individual procedures carried out in the bathhouse help.
Before entering the steam room, you need to drink warm teas from medicinal plants. It is necessary to warm up in the dressing room beforehand. Only after this can you enter a room where there is a lot of hot steam. When washing, it is necessary to exclude contrasting procedures.
It is important to use essential oils and massage your breasts with brooms. Before use, you need to soak them in boiling water with the addition of medicinal plants.
You need to visit the steam room in separate visits - about two or three. Under no circumstances should patients sweat themselves to the point of exhaustion. Don't waste your time.
As soon as the patient leaves the steam room, he should drink tea with honey and lemon. It is recommended to add ginger. It is important to wrap yourself up after the procedure. In cases where health programs are carried out according to all the rules, by the morning the cough will go away without a trace.
People have always believed that the sauna is a universal means of therapy for many diseases. Only it does good and not harm if the rules are followed. So, if you add essential oil to the stones, you need to first water them with water. Otherwise, the oil will burn without providing any therapeutic effect.
There is another opinion. When the body spends a lot of energy to cope with the disease, visiting the steam room will only deprive it of the available energy. As a result, the protective forces will weaken and the disease will develop.
How to do steam inhalation with soda
Most often, inhalation at home is done using baking soda. The product has an antiseptic, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, expectorant effect. Steam treats a sore throat, nose, and cough.
To prepare the solution, dilute 1 teaspoon of soda in 1 liter of hot water. Mix thoroughly. Pour into a steam inhaler or saucepan or kettle. In addition, baking soda can be used in a nebulizer. Only in this case, saline solution is used as a base. The proportions are identical.
Combination with alcohol
Consuming alcoholic beverages will have a negative impact on the condition of a sick person. In this case, the body will also weaken more. In addition, the patient will no longer be vigilant about how much time he spends in the steam room. As a result, complications will develop. The body can react unpredictably to such conditions. Often those who drink alcohol are drawn to refresh themselves in cold water, to create a contrast of sensations by jumping into the snow, as conscious control weakens. This is fraught with serious complications. A trivial cold can develop into a more dangerous disease.
The child will also benefit from a bath, but it must be taken into account that he will not be able to explain his condition, he is not yet old enough. Therefore, it is better not to take sick young children into the steam room. Komarovsky advises taking only healthy children to the bathhouse. Then visiting the steam room will benefit them and be a joy.
It is necessary to take into account the fact that if the listed recommendations are ignored, complications develop in the body.
