Not sure if this is FQ, GD or IMHO so mods feel free to move as necessary
I’ve heard that Nyquil/Dayquil is now not as effective as it once was due to a formula change so the first question is: is that true?
What is the best OTC cold medicine on the market now?
I am wont to say chicken soup. It has worked best.
Agreed.
It still works for me. Since “rest is the best medicine”, and since Nyquil completely wipes me out so I can sleep even though miserable, that’s what works best for me. In fact, it works so well that I have to take it no later than 8:30 pm, otherwise I can barely wake up and function.
When I have a really bad cold I buy:
Cold & Sinus Relief with Ibuprofen & Pseudoephedrine
I always get the Walmart brand, Sudafed is the name brand. It’s behind the pharmacy counter and you have to show your ID to purchase it. It’s the only medicine that really works.
I usually start with a decongestant to try to keep my nasal passages clear. The Walgreens brand pseudophenedrine. And I add some Tylenol if I have a headache. Eventually the cold works its way down to my chest so I add an expectorant, guaifenesin (Mucinex) because I hate coughing.
At night I’ll take a dose of a liquid nighttime med that usually has a mix of decongestant, expectorant and something to help me sleep. After a hot shower to break up whatever’s in my chest.
It’s important to drink a lot of fluids when taking these meds, as they are very drying to your insides.
Basically I follow the symptoms and don’t just lean on any old mix. If you stand there and look at all the options you’ll see there’s a ton of different mixes, even within each brand. But you can and should buy individual remedies and mix them yourself.
Quite so, ZippeJJ, quite so.
But I’m here just to beg everyone: be cautious of acetaminophen overdose. Many of these remedies have acetaminophen (Tylenol) as an ingredient. When mixing products it’s all too easy to use preparations that each have the drug and end up with too much.
I’ve flown such patients. It wasn’t pleasant for them.
Yes, absolutely! (I got interrupted by a phone call while writing my post and did leave out that info).
One of the main reasons I buy separate ingredients is so I can avoid double dosing. If I bought a decongestant that has acetaminophen and an expectorant that also has it, and I need both, then I have too much acetaminophen. If I have all my stuff separate, I can take it all as needed.
Plus there will be plenty of times post-cold when I would want to take either Tylenol or pseudophenadrine on their own, so it doesn’t hurt to have them around in general.
Ordinary measures:
Extraordinary measures:
My Daddys cure:
Indian or Mexican food.. spicy as you can do it.
2 shots of whiskey.
BC powder.
Go to bed.
(I don’t really recommend it, but he claimed it worked)
Yes! And yes! Protip: lightly bite/crush one (of the 2 tab dose) before swallowing for fast relief. You can really feel pseudoeph drain your face and the buzz is not completely unpleasant, especially when waking up so crappy with the cold. Not very tasty, though.
Wasn’t pseudoedephrine banned because you could Breaking Bad it? I thought that’s why the Quils are not as effective anymore.
Agree- pseudoephedrine is quite effective, and phenylephrine is junk. It really only came to market because “they” really wanted to eliminate pseudoephedrine because it can be used to make meth.
So just in case anyone doesn’t know, take the extra 5 minutes to go to the pharmacy counter and get the real stuff. You just have to promise not to make meth with it.
ETA
What’s funny about that, by the way, is that among those of us who are in the business have known for 20 years this stuff was junk- just took a while for the lay media to notice
Not banned, moved behind the counter.
That’ll be tough if the cough syrup is blue.
They’re all basically a combination of the same 6 ingredients
The weird part is that biologically, phenylephrine is fantastically effective, unless adminstered orally. Digestion destroys it before it can get into the bloodstream to do its thing.
So the whole “replace pseudoephedrine with phenylephrine in pills” was doomed from the start.
I’ve learned the hard way never to take nighttime cold medicine if I have to be awake and functioning the following day.
Just a quick question, is @Saint_Cad looking for a good cold medicine that’s “daytime” rated, or is that a non-issue?
Because, frankly, for me, all the various non-drowsy options (most of which use the much maligned phenylephrine) did not work at all for sinus-chest-congestion. The pseudoephedrine works well, but causes me to be noticeably sleepy, and the five minutes getting it from my Costco pharmacy makes me far more irritated than the delay justifies.
Another +1 for getting your cold medicine a la carte as it were. I have the above for congestion, a generic for the Mucinex, and a half dozen different painkillers to mix and match as needed.
For me, also. Dayquil is a pale shadow of its Nyquil sibling as far as I’m concerned..
Yes, this is what I do, as well. What are the specific symptoms and what meds address them? The combo cold meds I feel can be dangerous, as some folks don’t realize what’s in them and can end up getting a toxic amount of, say, acetaminophen over time. Better to look at each med individually and dose it appropriately.
I don’t feel expectorants do much, but if they did, they wouldn’t calm the coughing…you’d need to cough up what they produce (it’s in the name!) Cough suppressants will quell coughing.
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