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I hate taking drugs. I know that's hard to hear coming from a full time working musician. But it is true. I hate taking anti-histamines or sprays. I prefer the holistic approach.

The three ways to protect your voice:

1. Water: Distilled water is the best. Chlorinated water, even when filtered is the worst. Why? Think about how your skin feels after you've been swimming. Chlorine does the same thing to vocal cords - dries them out.

If you can not find steam distilled water, Wal-Marts have water filtered by reverse osmosis. It's a charcoal based filtering system that has no bacteria. Spring water is no good for that reason. You don't know what spring it came from, so you don't what organisms are still there.

2. Sleep: Hard to get enough sleep. If you're like me, you go, go, go. So 8 hours is tough. What I do is I make sure I take a nap before every gig. Even if I lay down for an hour it helps. The voice is never more relaxed then when at sleep.

3. ALOE DRINK by KHEE BROS. This stuff is the best! (No I don't get a commission form them.) I just tell you it works!

Ingredients: Pure water, aloe gel, fructose, honey, citric acid, calcium lactate, vitamin C, aloe fruit.

I usually find this drink at an Asian market. We have a great Chinatown in Chicago where I live. But check any of your local yellow pages or google them. It comes in a green plastic bottle. It actually real refreshing -- not like the aloe extract you get at the nature stores. It has helped immensely in healing my voice after a couple nights of gigging.

Aloe Vera is a miracle plant. If you don't know about it, you need to read up on it. It hydrates and it also helps allergies!! fat grms, 0 trans fat grms, 0 sugar ( it does have honey in it ), 11mg sodium, 0 Cholesterol, 15gms of Carbohydrates.