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If you’ve ever wondered why some people get strep throat over and over and over again, sometimes even just days after a strep infection was supposedly eradicated with antibiotics, here’s the likely answer as explained by old-time MDs who practiced medicine before the modern love affair with prescription drugs got its start.
Most people are far too quick to run and get a prescription for antibiotics and never give their immune system a chance to build any resistance whatsoever. Most never consider the use of home remedies for strep throat either.
Conventional doctors today do a great job of scaring people out of their minds about the possibility of rheumatic fever/heart damage from allowing the body to deal with a strep throat infection unmedicated. However, the truth is, the risk of complications from strep throat is very small for healthy people who have no issues with their immune system. Even WebMD used to state (before pharmaceutical industry pressure forced a change in language to only mention antibiotics) that strep throat will go away on its own with or without treatment in 3-7 days.
I’ve written before about the one and only case of strep throat I ever had. It occurred when I was 15 and I am ever so grateful my MD father loved me enough to let me fight through it and win without antibiotics. The result? I’ve never ever gotten strep throat again despite repeated exposures. One exposure was in very close quarters – a college roommate had strep throat and I still didn’t contract it! What’s even more interesting is that none of my children have ever had strep either despite multiple exposures from friends and classmates.
I obviously built up a strong resistance to strep throat at a young age and have been blessed with never having to suffer with it again by allowing my body to fight through it naturally. It’s also quite possible I passed on my immunity to my children via breastfeeding, although that is obviously just an educated guess on my part.
The article I wrote on my personal strep throat story has invited both ridicule and applause over the past couple of years. Some folks have angrily emailed me saying I am crazy and putting people’s lives in danger by suggesting that forgoing meds for strep is the best way to go if one is in good health.
For others, the article triggered an “aha moment” with more than just a few deciding once and for all to stare down the strep throat demon and win!
One such inspiring story crossed my inbox recently and the strep throat victim was none other than professional singer Martin DeBourge!
Here’s what Martin had to say:
As a singer, getting strep throat every single year is not only frustrating, but vocally debilitating! So when it hit again this year, and I felt it coming on, I decided a new course of action was in order.
I spent a day researching. The one article that really rang true for me was on your website about whether antibiotics for strep are really necessary. You talked about how you “muscled through it” when you had strep throat as a teenager, and how your body may have even built an immunity against it.
That sounded great to me! But, I am well aware of the massive pain strep throat can cause. Just swallowing fluid is excruciating, let alone solid foods. So I needed a sort of “healthy second opinion”.
I called fellow friend and vocalist David Katz in New York. I knew he was an herbalist, but most importantly, he would understand my plight as a singer needing to do what’s best for my pipes. He runs a website and has an herbal product line JUST for singers, so I knew he was the right guy.
He ALSO encouraged me to steer clear of the antibiotics and gave me a few suggestions to “get through it”.
I braced myself for at least 10 days of bed ridden fever, throat swelling and sickness. Like I said, I’ve been through this numerous times before, so I knew what I was in for. I didn’t clear my singing schedule though, hoping for the best.
To my amazement, the strep “spots” started clearing within a couple days. I had my voice back in 36 hours! I was floored… and convinced.
Martin kept a daily log of his strep throat home remedies adventure outlined below. Hopefully, it will inspire more than just a few others to take the leap themselves.
Effective Strep Throat Home Remedies
Martin’s holistic strep throat treatment consisted of the following ingredients which he consumed at a rate of ½ teaspoon every 30 minutes to an hour.
- Use a mortar & pestle to mash up 3 cloves of fresh garlic (sources). If the raw garlic is too hot for you or you’re concerned about the odor potential, use homemade pickled garlic instead. Do not use commercial pickled garlic as it has no therapeutic value.
- Mix in half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper (sources).
- Mix in raw honey (manuka honey is the most potent. Be wary what brand you buy as most manuka honey is fake. Get UMF certified 15+) to taste which has healing properties of its own (sources).
Martin also gargled with raw apple cider vinegar diluted with some water 3x per day (sources). Although Martin didn’t use it, adding small cups of bone broth to the regimen would have helped speed healing as well.
Note that some people like to gargle with colloidal silver, which also works well. However, note that this remedy will kill the good bacteria in your throat area as well as the bad, potentially contributing to more problems down the road from unbalanced mouth, throat, and sinuses flora.
Below is Martin’s daily journal logging his progress to a cure.
Using Home Remedies for Strep Throat: A Daily Journal
10/6 – Sunday afternoon – felt “something” in throat. Still sang well at rehearsal.
10/7 – Monday morning – “something” became more prominent and I began the research into what I felt was inevitably the strep bacteria attacking my throat.
10/7 – Monday early afternoon – visit to doctor for regular checkup and asking about an unrelated pulled muscle. He checked my throat (routinely) and said nothing. It didn’t matter if he had, I would have just went through the motions of accepting an antibiotic prescription, but not taking it – I had already made up my mind to do something “different”.
10/7 – Monday afternoon – found information on The Healthy Home Economist about beating strep with no meds. Followed up with a phone call to David Aaron Katz. Became convinced that I will muscle through it with home remedies. As per David’s suggestion, I started by sucking/chewing on cloves of garlic – 5 of them before the day was out!
10/7 – Monday evening – attempted to sing. Did not go well, highs were very strained.
10/8 – Tuesday morning – throat uncomfortableness, but quick mirror check didn’t seem to reveal anything overly red. Driving son to school is when I looked in rear view mirror and noticed two white spots. Strep confirmed.
10/8 – Tuesday later morning – started a cycle of garlic chewing with a mixture of raw honey & cayenne pepper every half hour (concoction detailed below). First two administers I experienced upset stomach, but became very tired and slept most afternoon.
10/8 – Tuesday afternoon – continued garlic/honey/cayenne mixture every half hour during awake times.
10/8 – Tuesday early evening. Headaches persisted, but still had an appetite. Gargled with ACV – that was a bit painful.
10/8 – Tuesday evening. Continued with mixture until I went to sleep. Noticed a third spot very far back and lower behind the tongue. May have always been there, but this is the first I noticed.
10/9 – Wednesday early morning – Awoke with a sore throat, a bit difficult to swallow. Gargled and drank 16 fl oz water with 2 tbs of ACV & Raw Honey. Checked throat under light, saw the same three spots.
10/9 – Wednesday afternoon – no stomach issues, and the sore throat lessened considerably throughout the day. Still uncomfortable, but I can definitely eat.
10/9 – Wednesday early evening – third spot undetected, second one lessening. First one still prominent, but definitely all good signs. Also, I noticed I am not all that drained and exhausted – which I attributed to the garlic intake.
10/10 – Thursday early morning – woke up with slightly less of a sore throat. Gargled and drank 16oz water with ACV & Honey. Throat under light still shows the one stubborn spot, hard to tell, but it could be a tiny bit less in size.
10/11 – Thursday afternoon – Was told by my wife that she can’t bear with my garlic breath another day… no worries, that third spot is definitely reduced in size. I decided that come morning, I will just do Apple Cider Vinegar. Besides, I had a karaoke gig this night and needed to not smell like garlic for the customers.
10/12 – Friday Morning – Spot free. Wow. Not a single spot, throat back to normal. I decided to slowly warm up the voice as I had a singing engagement to prepare for on Saturday.
10/13 – Saturday evening – voice 100%. Throat clean as a whistle. In all my years (year after year) getting strep throat, I have NEVER bounced back this quick – not to mention getting through it without antibiotics.
10/15 – UPDATE: I made a facebook post about this a few days ago, simply saying that I kicked strep to the curb without the use of antibiotics. I have over 1400 followers on my profile, so I certainly expected varying comments. One particular comment jumped out at me… “make sure you really got rid of it, it typically comes back within a couple days if you didn’t eradicate it”.
Well……… it’s not back!
Congratulations Martin on the amazing success of your strep throat remedy! Please keep us updated on your progress, but my bet is that you won’t ever be taking antibiotics for strep throat again, and you may very well never even have it again!
Have you always wondered how to get rid of strep throat without meds? Have you ever muscled through it under your own power using one or more strep throat home remedies? If so, what remedies did you use and have you experienced immunity to strep throat since? Please chime in with the strep throat cures which worked for you below.
Want to connect with Martin? These links below will point you in the right direction:
(youtube) www.youtube.com/martindebourge
(bio) www.15hifi.com/site/martindebourge
More Information
Remedy for Sore Throat (fast acting)
How to Repair Your Gut After Antibiotics
Why Antibiotics Today Could Threaten Your Life Tomorrow
Best Natural Antibiotics and How to Use Them
Fever Blisters Home Remedy
How do u get a 3 year old to gargle anything? Mine was diagnosed with strep today. I am nervous about giving antibiotics AGAIN, but none of these natural remedies appear to be something I would be able to get her to do.
Yes, this remedy is difficult for a young child. You may perhaps wish to go with the antibiotics instead if the remedy doesn’t work due to your child’s young age.
I have strep all the time. I’ve tried not using medicine but I’ve also used medicine. Neither is working I just keep getting strep. But nobody else in my family does. It always goes away but then comes back just as bad. I’ve had it confirmed many times. I have to get my tonsils taken out now. I don’t think what you had was strep.
it is actually; it is however normally from type A FECAL streptococcus.
Did you get it confirmed that it was strep? You said your doctor said it wasn’t. tonsillitis can also cause white patches so seeing those alone can’t tell you it was strep. i had a bad case of tonsilitis last year that had a lot of white patches. you might have been fighting off tonsillitis thinking it was strep since you don’t say you had a swap test confirming it. If that’s the case, you didn’t fight off strep and this is very misleading. I came here looking for alternatives to antiobiotics for strep.
Toughing it out with strep is a really bad idea! Before antibiotics came to be, my father had strep throat, and later had rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart from an untreated strep infection, except with home remedies. My grandmother died from a heart valve that was weakened by strep. There are very serious ramifications for lingering strep. I don’t like to use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. But don’t take chances with strep!
Years ago when my children were small we had a rough time with strep throat..everytime my kids went to the doctor no matter what for they said they had strep..at that point I had 5 children, the first time I even heard of strep my daughter had sleep apnea and quit breathing for 2 minutes..she was only 17 days old and that’s when it all began..my son was 2, it was about 2 months after my previously mentioned daughter was diagnosed.. he grabbed the cord to a television and pulled it onto his head…we rushed him to emergency, they tested for strep and yes it was positive..so this time the doctor said let’s treat all the kids knock this out and we’ll be good so I listened to this man educated about these things!! He knows best right?? All 5 kids are on antibiotics..not to mention stuck inside for 24 hours..they also didn’t have any symptoms 3 weeks later, our baby about 3 months at the time has another incident with sleep apnea, she is rushed by ambulance to hospital where once again strep is present, all 5 kids are prescribed antibiotics, at this point my otherwise healthy never sick kids have a running nose constantly!! To make a very long story short we spent a year and a half with our kids on antibiotics at least every other month..one day my son was having a anifilactic shock reaction and was rushed to emergency, he was in 3rd grade and I was sick of antibiotics at this point I had been researching other options..the emergency room in the midst of his severe allergic reaction tested him for strep and I had enough and said no antibiotics..either they don’t work at all, or he’s immune..that didn’t go over well and I was threatened with cod..so I took the antibiotics and that’s afternoon we went home.. I squirted the antibiotics down the sink, had him gargle with water with salt in it, he didn’t have any symptoms at all..but then I thought all the kids have been taking antibiotics so they all had to gargle!! We did this for two weeks straight..then continued our lives, the runny noses slowed down and I was excited instead of 6 boxes of Kleenex I was down to 2 a month!! But then my daughter got an extremely bad sunburn, she was 12 and went on a boat in just her swim suit..she had sunblock on except for her upper thighs and they burned so bad she couldn’t walk so we took her to the emergency room, and the doctor actually asked me, ” do you want me to treat the sunburn or the strep?” I promptly said the sunburn if I have to choose, he presciped luke warm baths and pain mess..so I took her home and made all the kids gargle with apple cider vinegar in water for 2 weeks…boy did they whine!! But the next time I went to the store I realized we didn’t need any more kleenexs!! And that’s when I realized I wouldn’t put my kids on antibiotics unless absolutely necassary ever again..this has been over 12 years ago..I have had 2 more children and have had the pleasure of watching 2 get married.. I have a 3 year old, and all my kids are super healthy..I will never allow them to take antibiotics for strep again, in fact I avoid antibiotics at all cost!! Thank you for this article it was a great read wish I had found it 15 years ago!!
My moms parents were too poor to get antibiotics for her when she got strep as a child. They had to toughit out. Do u know it led to rhumatic fever then when my mom was 40 she had to get a pacemakwr cuz she hada heart murmur from the strep
Some people just carry strep and never get sick or get anyone around them sick. There are two strands of strep A and B. The strep A is your “strep throat”. Strep B is tested in pregnant women and it lives on most people (I got words for that too for another day). I took my daughter to her doctor for pink eye and of course they wanted to test for strep. I said no because she hasn’t had any symptoms of strep. No headache, sore throat, loss of appetite, or fever. They began to tell me pink eye is a symptom. I argued that and looked it up on CDC.org and pink eye is not a symptom of strep! So needless to say but to shut them up I allowed them to swab her; swab came back positive. They gave me a prescription for antibiotics and eye drops. I still have NOT GIVEN my daughter those antibiotics and she still HAS NOT had any strep throat symptom. It’s possible the strand just lives in her making her immune to it therefore she will not get strep throat but will continue to test positive for it.
Your advice on telling people to tough it out is wrong. I know many people who now have life threatening heart issues due to strep not being treated by antibiotics and not to mention how contagious you are to others. You should never tough out streo. It can cause serious especially in people with lowered immune systems.
Certain issues can be treated with natural herbs , but why suffer for ten days an infect everyone around you? Bad advice.
The post CLEARLY states that this approach is ONLY to be considered by those in full health with no immune compromising issues!
I’ve had strep throat once every 2-years or so since I was a pre-teen. I’ve never taken antibiotics for it and clearly, my body did not develop an immunity. While I certainly agree that we should make our bodies stronger by trying to fight through colds, flus and other bugs naturally, I just wanted to point out that some people get recurring strep even though they’ve done that (time and time again!) 🙂