Tips to Avoid a Sore Throat

How To Prevent a Sore Throat¹

There are a couple of things to remember to minimise the risk of a sore throat.

• Eat a balanced diet - plenty of fruit and vegetables
• Get a good night’s sleep - eight hours per day is usually enough for most people.
• Exercise - outdoors is best
• Try to avoid stress - even if daily life is often stressful, you can try to develop ways of relaxing.
• Don’t smoke - actively or passively
• Strengthen your immune system - it’s easy to do this with home remedies, like fruit smoothies, to boost your defences
• Drink plenty of fluids to keep your pharynx lubricated
• Ensure there is a good indoor climate - avoid draughts and ensure there is sufficient humidity

Sore Throat Relief Tips²:

Overall, there are many ways to obtain effective relief from a sore throat. The following tips are easy to apply and supplement topical sore throat medication:

Rest

When it comes to easing a sore throat, one of the most important things is rest. Because not only does sleep help to improve your mood, getting enough sleep is also important for a healthy immune system.

Avoid alcohol

This should be obvious, but many people are convinced that alcohol cleanses the throat. In fact, the opposite is true: alcohol dehydrates the tissue even more and aggravates throat inflammation.

Avoid speaking loudly or overusing your voice

Try to treat your voice with care during the day. This will avoid the pain getting any worse. You should feel better in the course of the next few days.

Avoid smoke and smoking

Smoking can dry out your pharynx and lead to inflammation, which will aggravate your sore throat. For this reason, we would advise staying away from places where there is a lot of smoke and if you are a smoker, stop smoking until you have recovered, or better still, use the opportunity to give up completely.

Avoid excessively hot food and drink

Ideally, avoid any hot food and drink, as this can aggravate your throat even more and cause further pain. Highly spiced food, food containing acids (such as citrus fruit), or hard fried food is not recommended, as this can make swallowing even more difficult.

Eat and drink plenty

If you have a sore throat, the thought of the pain when swallowing your food might put you off eating. However, your body needs energy and the right balance of nutrients. Try eating soup if solid food is too painful. Chicken soup is a classic home remedy to treat a sore throat. Every mouthful not only helps to give you energy – it can also ease your irritated throat. It is important to keep your body well hydrated, so you need to drink plenty of water!

Place a heated wrap around your throat

This can be a heated wrap, a piece of clothing straight out of the tumble dryer or a face flannel or towel immersed in water - heat can ease a sore throat. Heated pillows are particularly effective for relaxing painful areas. Heat boosts circulation and can thus ease your symptoms.

Another piece of advice

Even if your sore throat has not completely disappeared after a couple of days, you can continue to use these measures for as long as you need to, even if you are also taking other forms of medication for a sore throat. Vitamin C also assists the normal function of the immune system. Many people swear by “hot lemon” - but a word of caution: vitamin C is very sensitive to heat. So you need to boil your water and then wait for it to cool until it is lukewarm before you add the lemon juice.

Sore Throat in a Nutshell³

• Sore throats are mainly a symptom of colds, tonsillitis or other forms of inflammation in the mouth and pharynx.
• 8 out of 10 infections are caused by viruses.
• More than 100 different viruses can cause a cold, most of these being transmitted via infected droplets, such as when sneezing, coughing or via a smear infection when shaking someone’s hand.
• Antibiotics are ineffective in these cases, as these can only combat bacterial infection.

Medication to ease a sore throat⁴

Strepsils has a wide range of products to help relieve and treat the symptoms of a sore throat. From the first signs of sore throat, Strepsils provides antiseptic action to fight viruses and bacteria and it provides fast-acting relief to prevent sore throat pain from getting worse.

If your throat is very painful and inflamed Strepsils Max Pro lozenges can help relieve the pain and the inflammation. Strepsils Max Pro variant is anti-inflammatory, offer pain relief and reduce swelling. It can reduce pain and inflammation for up to 6 hours.

Other causes of a sore throat include:

• Allergies and hayfever
• Heartburn (gastric acid reflux into the oesophagus)
• Dry air from air conditioning
• Smoking
• Passive smoking
• Voice strain
• Environmental factors, e.g. emissions and air pollution

Common symptoms of a sore throat⁵

• Difficulty swallowing
• Burning sensation in the throat
• Prickly sensation in the throat
• Dry throat
• Tingling in the throat
• Sensation of a lump in the throat
• Swollen pharynx
• Swollen lymph nodes

When should you see a doctor about a sore throat?

Although sore throats usually get better by drinking plenty of fluid, resting and using some form of topical throat medication, in some cases, you may need to see a doctor.

Look for the following symptoms⁶:

• High temperature
• Dehydration
• Worsening symptoms
• Sore throat lasting longer than 3 days, despite taking steps to ease it.
• Breathing difficulty
• Difficulty swallowing
• Coughing with mucus
• Pus in the throat
• Difficulty opening your mouth
• Severe earache
• Pain in the forehead or jaw area

If your symptoms still do not improve after treating your sore throat as instructed by the doctor, you should go back to the doctor for further examination.