Q. If I have a stomach virus, what steps can I take to get over it more quickly?

A. To get over a stomach virus quickly, combine repletion with palliation.

Repletion means restoring crucial nutrients that your body loses in gastrointestinal distress. One way to do that is with egg drop soup from any Chinese restaurant—it combines water-based chicken stock with whole egg. It also contains salt, which a depleted body needs.

In addition, take Larix, the trade name for the inner bark of the Western larch—this sweet-tasting white powder, very soluble in water, calms mucous membranes.

Palliation means making the stomach and large intestine feel better. For the stomach, sip a tea made with gentian and slippery elm bark. The herbs are available at TeaHaven.com. Use a mixture of two-thirds gentian and one-third slippery elm with a teaspoon of the combination in each cup. Steep for eight minutes. For the intestine, try Thorne Research’s Pepti-Guard, which includes deglycyrrhizinated licorice root and berberine in a base that is mainly bismuth citrate—it effectively calms the large intestine.