"el gripe"--or, just one more thing I never learned in medical school

So I had always sort of chuckled when looking at pictures in Spanish language textbooks in that chapter that describes las enfermedades, or illness. All of them mention "el gripe," which has been translated for me as "the flu," and sometimes "a really bad cold," and without exception there is always a cartoon of some guy looking miserable with a rag around his head and his feet in a big tub of hot water. This image has always perplexed me, as I have never used or seen used such a remedy for anything other than a warm-up to a pedicure (and not even that, since Kevin Winthrop told me about that little town on the coast of California where all the women developed massive ulcerations from soaking their toes in tubs infested with mycobacterium....). At any rate, I had sort of chalked up the images to artistic license mixed with some long-lost folk remedy that nobody uses anymore.

How wrong I was.

Apparently, el gripe is well known in these parts. And believe it or not, the only solution is to put your feet into boiling hot water followed by a vigorous rubbing with a warm towel, application of Vick's vapo-rub, and finally, socks. No part may be omitted if you want to chase out el gripe. Here is the rationale for the above, and a description of why it works:



In hot climates (read: this one...did I mention it was about 102 degrees today?), there is the danger of overheating one's head, which leads to a red face or upper body rash, a head ache, lethargy, and a cough. The risk is hugely increased when one walks around barefooted on cool tiles, which we all did immediately upon arrival and for about 2 days therafter--until convinced that we were all succombing, one by one and through nothing other than our own recklessness, to el gripe. Baxter was the first to develop the cough which, of course, we thought nothing of: he has asthma, he didn't get enough sleep during our travels, of course his asthma was going to flare, etc. More albuterol; more advair. Only, it wasn't working for his cough. He wasn't getting worse, but he also wasn't getting better. Enter Cougher #2, Tula. Now, she does not technically have asthma, but as we are a bit gun-shy when it comes to that particular ailment, I have not hesitated to administer any and all of her brother's medications when the need arises, say, when she has a cough. So I did. And they did NOTHING. She, like her brother, did not seem to be coughing from asthma. Neither did she have other symptoms that would lead me to believe she was coughing from a typical upper respiratory illness. It was at this point that I began to search for Other Explanations.

Dona Olga, with whom we are living, had been mentioning something out of the corner of her mouth that I had failed to understand for 2 days, so I finally pressed her for an explanation. She had been admonishing us for not wearing our "chanclas," or flimsy little house sandals. This and only this was the way to prevent "el gripe," which in essense was described to me as "all the heat leaving the feet and ascending to the head, where it causes a cough and red face and a rash." The hot water feet remedy, it was explained, was a way to "pull the hot back down out of the head," thus curing the cough and eliminating the rash....



Now, to my western ears this of course sounds like craziness. But I am struck by how similar in concept this explanation is to that of "rebellious qi." In traditional Chinese acupuncture, "rebellious qi" is any qi that does not stay where it is supposed to stay, or travel through the body along the usual routes. For example, "rebellious qi" is accepted to be the reason behind hiccoughs, belching, and some forms of dizziness. It is also an accepted etiology for coughing--especially for coughing that occurs upon coming inside after running around in cold air. Interestingly enough, the cure for this flavor of "rebellious qi" is to warm the KI-1 (Kidney-1) point with a lit moxa stick until the cough subsides. Where is KI-1? Well, I am glad you asked. It happens to be the only point on the body located on the plantar surface of the FOOT.




So, of course we lined the kids up on Day 3 with a bucket of hot water and put them through their el gripe treatment paces. Dona Olga actually did the honors, and while I was somewhat mortified that she got to be the one to rub away three days of el grime from my childrens' feet, I was grateful for the private tutorial from an el gripe expert.



Tula and Baxter have not coughed since.

I will also mention, for those of you public health folks out there (and you know who you are), that we did, in fact, all get our own pairs of chanclas the following day, and have been wearing them religiously since. Mahlon and Baxter like to remind Tula with the following song cribbed and altered from Avatar, called "Chakras:"

"Chanclas, chanclas, everybody loves chanclas...."