Cold remedies, please - over the counter to out of your mind

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

For the throat, better than lozenges and provides a feeling of cosseting in and of itself: a tea made by the line “Traditional Medicinals” called “Throat Coat.” It’s slippery elm tea, and wow does it soothe the throat wonderfull.

After a day or two, when you start getting really stuffed and have trouble clearing your head at all, hie thee to the drugstore and get the OTC version of guaifenisin known as Mucinex. Taking that and drinking a LOT of extra water helps think the mucus and keep your nose at least running instead of just totally plugged up.

Most of all: Sleep, sleep, sleep as much as you possibly can. And good luck in court – and try not to sneeze on the judge! (But on opposing counsel, feel free! :smiley: )

22

Seconding YaWanna. Three grams of effervescent vitamin C and at least 4 liters of water, each day for three days. Echinacea/goldenseal/capsicum worked for me a few times but now doesn’t seem to.

I am not a doctor. You are not my patient. This side up. Based on a true story. Pigs are definitely stupid.

23

Just wanna say ginger in tea definitely tastes weird.

I didn’t have fresh, so used powdered. That may have something to do with it.

I will have to pass on the pepper steak as my stomach is turning up its nose at it. (You didn’t know your stomach had a nose? Really. It’s right by the greater curvature.)

I am about to make a mug of honey limeade. I will drink it. Then my husband will come home with the Nyquil (three votes for the stuff on the Dope means it’s gospel). Then I will go to bed, and get sleep sleep sleep. Then I will get up to pee pee pee from all these fluids.

What would I do if I didn’t have you guys?

Oh, and somebody re-recommend bourbon, willya? I want two votes at least for bourbon.

And hey, Sausage Creature, the patients I prefer are cold. The room temperature ones tend to be…icky. But worst of all is “core warm”. I hate it when they’re warm.

I promise to keep me warm and go to bed,

Thankfully,
Gabriela

PS It is my bounden obligation to say that my husband was quite sympathetic before he went off to teach his class, and will return with cold medicines. So there.

24

Other adult beverage = bourbon. 'k?

GT

25

I’ve saved a few phenylpropanolamine tabs from back in the day…

26

Instead of taking antihistamines, get a dehumidifier and sleep with your head near its discharge side, and wear breath-rite strips.

27

Is that what they took out of Coricidin D and that ilk? 'Cuz that stuff really worked, but apparently someone, somewhere, took it and got a bad case of euphoria.

28

Drink beer. Lots of it. You’ll feel better in no time and piss out a bunch of bad stuff. I’m not a Dr., but I play one on the Straight Dope.

29

Funny you should post this. I was off work yesterday with the Iraqi Terrorist Cold (a coworker’s son brought it back with him from his recent tour in Iraq).

I’m with Oakminster – lots of Nyquil or its generic equivalent. I also recommend lots of rest, fluids and steam heat in the form of baths as well as tea. If you have a hot tub or a friend who has a hot tub, so much the better. You can also by over-the-counter spray on throat anaesthetic. I don’t know what the brand name is since I have the generic stuff from CVS on hand, but it does work. I’ve also got some non-drowsy decongestant to get me through the day.

Good luck and I hope your testimony goes well.

30

When I have a cold, a nice long steamy shower helps relieve the symptoms considerably. I drink lots of chicken broth (we like Better than Bullion flavor bases, rather than cubes) and lots of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea. Sleepytime has “Chamomile flowers, spearmint leaves, lemon grass, tilia flowers, blackberry leaves, orange blossoms, hawthorn berries, and rosebuds” according to their website. It’s very gentle on my stomach, and the spearmint seems to help unclog my sinuses. Sometimes I sweeten it with honey or white sugar, other times I drink it unsweetened. Either way, it really makes me feel better.

31

Bourbon will do the same job as vodka. Just don’t add pepper to it - that would be even weirder than powdered ginger in tea.

32

I found out some time back that I kind of have to choose between rolled Kleenex (Scottex sells 'em and anybody who looks funny at someone toting a pack of them around the office deserves to get atchooed on) and a bleeding throat.

Hot milk with honey drives up the mucus. So I need to bdow by doze mod of-fen (hence the bottle of Nivea close at hand) but at least my throat doesn’t bleed and I can have a conversation (albeit one punctuated by “eg-guze me, PEEEEP, sorry”)

33

Oh, and around here, herbal teas with “aspirin” (generic name for any golden liquor, of course including bourbon) is a tradition for anybody with a headache or stuffy head. Dunnow bout you, but for me the stuffy brain is much worse than the stuffy nose.

34

I have been waiting for this thread for quite some time.

I, too, am not a doctor, but only have personal testimony here.

I used to have TERRIBLE colds: at least two to three times a year, and at least two to three weeks at a time. Remember that kid in elementary school whose nose was always running? That was me. I got colds in the SUMMER (and if you think hot, humid weather is miserable on its own, try suffering it with a three-week-old head full of snot and a red, chapped, cracked, bleeding nose that feels like it’s going to fall off from having been blown so often).

However, a bit over twenty years ago, I found a solution. I’m not trying to go all Kevin Trudeau on people, but I found a natural cure that at least works for me. I haven’t had to suffer a cold in two decades. I take NO cold medicine. I do NOT suffer. Big Pharma gets NONE of my money.

Sure, I get the inkling of a scratchy throat, which I know from many years of experience will become excruciating within 24 hours (to the point that I can barely swallow), and then will migrate into my sinuses for the remainder of the month.

What I do when this happens is buy about five pounds of navel oranges and a few pounds of really potent white onions (don’t go wimpy on the onions–Vidalias are [Monty Python] RIGHT OUT!!![/MP]). They have to make your eyes water like the old cartoons as soon as you cut into them: the more potent the better.

Spend 24 hours eating nothing but raw onions and drinking nothing but fresh-squeezed orange juice.

By the next day, there will be no trace of the malaise…at least for me. I haven’t had to suffer a cold since 1985. I went from nine weeks of hell per year since I was a tot to barely three hours per year of minor discomfort, and it’s worked long enough for the Olsen Twins to become legal to go out with.

Can’t claim it will work for you, but it’s worth a shot. Maybe it’s just my body chemistry, but colds don’t stand a chance with me anymore.

It’s glorious!

(I’d really like to know if this works for anyone else, btw.)

35

I hope all went well at court today. If you don’t have anything pressing to do tomorrow, I have the cure. Bourbon(there’s your 3rd vote) along with lots of beer and other alcoholic beverages.

Last year I was getting into the worst part of a cold when I had to go to a friend’s bachelor party. I really considered skipping it, but I bucked up and went out. Hopefully just getting really drunk is the cure, because I couldn’t tell you the exact amounts or types of alcohol I had that night.

What I can tell you is that I woke up the next day with a horrible hang-over. By the afternoon, however, the hangover subsided and there was no trace of the cold. Normally, at that point, I would have had at least 4-5 more days of feeling miserable.

YMMV, but even if it doesn’t work you’ll at least feel good for a few hours.

36

**Dijon Warlock **, How in the hell did you come up with that one? One day you were getting a cold and said to yourself: “Nothing but orange juice an raw onions today!” Did you try other weird combos before you came upon that one?

Gabriela, plain hot water with lemon and honey helps me, but a splash of bourbon can’t hurt.

37

Thanks for all the cold remedies! And for mentioning bourbon! Often!

Testimony went fine except that they had me sitting on my ass in a victim witness room for THREE HOURS waiting my turn to go on. Fortunately the victim witness room was packed full of cops so it was laughs without stop. “I always wondered why that cop was nicknamed Timex?” “Cause he has no sense of time.” “Excuse me?” “Bastard gets excited about every single thing that comes in - he NEVER SEEMS TO KNOW WHEN IT"S TIME TO GO HOME!!!” (fine in a subordinate, not fun in a sergeant)

But I could not push fluids while I was waiting, so I am home early again, thank you work.

And I will be doing nyquil, hot water with lemon and honey, tea, whiskey, tylenol, chicken broth, steamy showers, and cheap generic Dayquil when driving or autopsying (Does a dead body count as ‘operating heavy machinery’?).

But I can’t face Dijon Warlock’s cure. Worse than the disease. Reminds me of the time they seriously studied the Pritikin diet. Took a bunch of middle-aged American men with documented stenoses of their coronary arteries. Put’em on no-cheating honest-to-God less than5% calories from fat in the diet. After six months, their coronary artery narrowings, instead of getting worse, had gone down by abou 10%. Response: a stampede of feet rushing away from the findings.
The Pritikin people? “It works!” Everybody else: "Where’s my Lipitor and baby aspirin, and you can ream my coronaries out once every six years for me! Steak with butter dripping over it, please!

You might be right about your cure, **Dijon Warlock **(what a great name), but I’ll never know.

And I shall never forget the noble Dopers who flocked to my cure.

Thanks, all.

38

Is it too late for me to add?

I’m surviving today by 2 doses of Dayquill and twice gargling hot salt-water, as hot as I could stand it. If it gets worse, I have the secret weapon: Make tea and add a full teaspoon of red/cayene pepper to your cup. Drink it as hot as you can stand it…

39

We’ve got a product called Lemsip here which is paracetemol*, phenylephrine hydrochloride and lemon. It’s a powder (add boiling water) and the lemon is strong enough to disguise the taste of the paracetemol. Add a dash of whisky to it once it’s cooled a little and you will sleep and sweat and dream crazy dreams. You will feel much better in the morning.

  • I’m sure you have another name for this but I can’t remember
40

Me ‘n’ Mr. K don’t get sick. He works out, but I don’t at the moment. We both smoke like it’s our job, we eat whatever the hell we feel like eating. And neither of us has been sick in like 15 years. We have four cats.

Why don’t we get sick?