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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
I wish I had know about this when I was 15. I left strep untreated because it was the holiday time and I did not want to miss the Christmas activities at school. I ended up with Scarlet Fever and it took me a month to recover from that. I have never been so sick in my entire life as I was then.
This is so not even based in reality.
Strep is a bacterial infection. You don’t develop immunity. The dangers of becoming very ill are REAL. I’ve known several people in my life who’s parents didnt’ treat their strep as children and have serious life long complications – heart problems and infertility being the most common, results of rheumatic and scarlet fever.
The ONLY way to know you have strep is a throat culture. Symptoms of strep are just like several common viruses. The only way to know for sure is to find Streptococcus bacteria which you can only know if you have a throat culture.
Can you beat it off on your own? Yeah. Sometimes. But if you don’t and you wait? By the time you realize you’re not winning you’re in deep trouble.
Obviously antibiotics aren’t needed for every sore throat – most are caused by viruses, not strep. Antibiotics don’t do squat for viruses.
There are SO many reasons some people don’t get strep and other people get it all the time. One of the things is tonsil size – for all we know those who do these “cures” don’t have strep and the people who never get strep just have small tonsils.
This is just so dangerous and irresponsible I’m literally SEETHING.
And before anyone assumes anything – I HATE big pharma with a fiery passion that is fiery. I hate medications, I think just about everything is over-prescribed and the overuse of antibiotics is dangerous. BUT THIS!? I just can’t even.
Although I am sure that this helped you get better. It doesn’t show that you necessary actually beat “Strep Throat”. You had no strep test done, I know personally I get white spots in my throat the resemble strep every time I get sick. So I end up going to the doctors, they feel I have strep and the test show I am strep free and they send me on my way. So just taking care of myself like I normally would for a cold helps my symptoms go away. I also use garlic & honey for illness, they work wonders!
Her father was an MD, she very likely could have been tested.
Sarah, I wish you and my mom had been friends when I was growing up! Then she wouldn’t have put me on antibiotics 2-3 times every year of my life from the time I was 3 months old. Then maybe I wouldn’t have chronic fatigue, bipolar disorder and possibly cancer (waiting for a diagnosis- either way my seizures need to be treated).
I have never knowingly been diagnosed with strep throat, as a child we rarely visited a doctor due to not having health insurance. I am sure I have suffered from it at some point but was never offered antibiotics so I’m pretty sure I’m immune. My two children have never been diagnosed with strep either despite multiple exposures. However, a few years back I had the worse sore throat ever and since I work in a lab the pathologist agreed to swab my throat. It came back strep, type “C”. I researched this type and found it is found mainly in farm animals. I rarely come in contact with farm animals except through store bought beef. I did recall handling raw beef stew meat a few weeks prior to my dx that was bloody and since it was winter I had open sores and cracks on my fingers/cuticles. I’m assuming the blood from the beef was probably infected with strep C and thus infected me via the cow’s blood from the beef. The sore throat eventually healed with out use of antibiotics but it was extremely painful. I no longer buy any type of beef from the super market but now by grass fed from a local farmer.
Thanks for this information. While my husband and I have not come down with strep throat, I bet this recipe will work for any sore throat issues that arise from the common cold, etc.
I had strep throat once about 15 years ago, took the meds as prescribed, got a regular non strep throat infection a couple of years after that and have never had even a tiny sore throat since then….Guess I am just lucky.
The BEST thing I’ve ever found for strep throat is an essential oil known as Spice of Life, Thieves or On Guard. They have cinnamon, clove bud, eucalyptus, rosemary and wild orange or lemon in them, and they can cure any sore throat (including strep) in a couple of days. I have used them on both myself and my children (as young as 4) with excellent results. There is also an apple cider recipe with similar ingredients that is supposed to be great for sore throats.
Let me add a few things from my own experience and with the input I received over the years from my mother who is a microbiologist and has worked in the lab for years with all these yucky germs! There are people who carry strep chronically, and it resurfaces when the immune system is overwhelmed by fighting off another bug or toxin or even with fatigue. I had recurring strep for years, and being allergic to amoxicillin it was difficult to find an antibiotic to take. But like clockwork, I got it every 6 months or more often, and always a really terrible case. This went on for years. Then I worked with a homeopath and by detoxifying and strengthening my system to fight off strep on its own, I was able to eliminate this bug and stop being a carrier. I haven’t had strep now for more than 8 years! Interestingly enough, when the pregnancy tests for Strep B came around (even though this is a different strain than the type that affects the throat) and I found out I was positive for strep B, I wondered if the same drops that knocked out the strep throat would hit the Strep B – and they did! In subsequent pregnancies, I took those homeopathic drops in the last month or two of pregnancy and was able to avoid the antibiotic discussion with my OB. I highly recommend looking into an appropriate homeopathic remedy if you feel you’re a carrier.
Can you please share what drops you used to knock out the strep B in the last months of pregnancy? I’m at 32 weeks and would love to know what I can be doing to avoid it!
Let me start by saying that I am a family physician who recommends and uses a lot of natural remedies and prescribes antibiotics only when indicated (ie, not for a sore throat or cough that is likely caused by a virus) and I do a lot of OB care. With that being said, many people are Group B Strep positive in one pregnancy and not in the others. Most of us are positive about a third of the time, regardless of what we do. Since we started testing for and treating people for Group B Strep, the fetal morbidity and mortality from Group B Strep has greatly decreased.
I’m just curious, did the people who muscled through it with bad results use natural anribiotics, or just try to muscle through it and let their bodies heal without extra support? It seems all of the good testimonials used something, while I see no mention of natural remedies for the bad testimonials. Of course I’m tired and have kids that are needing me right now, so might have missed that 🙂 My dad has an enlarged heart from rheumatic fever as a baby, so I’d like to understand this as much as possible. I was a sickly kid up through my 20’s until I adopted the WAPF lifestyle and began taking the iodine protocol. I am a carrier of strep, however when my family gets exposed we never seem to get it. I think keeping vitamin AD and K levels up and all the fermented beverages/foods we consume must help kill off the strep quickly. I never skip our daily fermented cod liver oil with a little butter and Thorne’s liquid D and K drops. I’ve learned that when I do, we get sick!
Hi Liz, when I got over strep throat myself … I used no holistic therapies whatsoever. I actually didn’t even eat that healthy at that time in my life. I subsisted during my strep throat episode on milkshakes from the corner ice cream shop. Not exactly health promoting! But, I was healthy with no immune issues and so kicked it with no problem.