I just bought some Zicam Cold Remedy No Drip Nasal Gel. Now I’m wondering, does it even work to shorten a cold? All the gel does is sit in the lower part of your nose for like a minute and then you can blow it out. So how does that work, and how can I be sure it will even work. Did I just waste $8?
I was pretty sure Zicam is a homeopathic remedy, and their website confirms it. Then I googled “Zicam”, and a large majority of the results on the first page have to do with lawsuits and negative side effects, including loss of the sense of smell.
So, either it is a actual homeopathic preparation, which means it’s only effectiveness is as a placebo, or it contains actual measurable amounts of an active ingredient (zincum glucomium according to their FAQs), which may have bad side effects.
I’d stay away from it, either way.
The concenus among Dopers is probably going to be “no”. However, the Zicam products seem to me to be, at worst, damn good placebos.
I’m taking Zicam’s chewables to stave off a cold right now (they do the same thing as the nasal gel, but are administered orally). I don’t know how I’d be doing without them, but at the moment, I am able to get through a work day without hacking constantly (maybe three or four times all day).
I assume that the zincum glucomium has a deliverable component of zinc. Isn’t there a demonstrable link between zinc and getting over colds? Or was it one of those kinds of things where not all subsequent researchers could replicate the results of a famous preliminary study?
I got the nasal gel because I noticed the ingredients, like the dissolving tablets have Zincum Gluconium 1X whereas the gel has 2X (waht exactly does that mean?)
Also, the melts have Zincum Axeticum 2X.
In homeopathy, the higher number actually indicates a lower concentration of the active ingredient. 1x means one drop of the remedy has been diluted in 10 drops of alcohol. 2X means that one drop of the results of this dilution has been itself diluted in 10 drops of alcohol, resulting in a dilution of 1 in 100.
Like bordelond said, most Dopers are highly skeptical of anything homeopathic.
Here’s the entry on homeopathy in the Skeptic’s Dictionary, in case you’re interested.
I looked up Cecil’s column on zinc lozenges as a cold remedy. It’s 6 years old, but according to the column, the studies weren’t conclusive.
What I was wondering is if all homeopathy is created equal. I understand that diluted urine and whatnot is obvious quackery. But what are the odds that Zicam works despite itself?
One reason I ask is that my wife and I had used homeopathic teething tablets for my daughter when she was an infant – and they worked very, very well. I’m assuming that an infant should be more or less immune to a placebo affect (the pills were dissolved into her formula, so she wasn’t even aware she was taking them). Now then, maybe … just maybe, there was a placebo effect on my wife and I. Is it possible that the administration of these pills made us somehow “deaf” to our daughter’s cries? To me, that seems far-fetched … but I really can’t 100% dismiss that, either. 99% maybe, but not 100%.
Yeah, for you, you probably did.
It’s not a waste for me. I have asthma, and my colds are complicated. There was a period in my life where every cold turned into asthmatic bronchitis and I could count on a month of being solidly sick, another month of feeling like crap and yet another month before I actually got back to normal. All that from a cold.
I finally figured out that by controlling the symptoms by lots and lots of medication that I could keep it from progressing to asthmatic bronchitis. That got my colds down to an incredibly miserable two and a half to three weeks. But nothing I tried – and I tried every remedy out there, so the placebo effect doesn’t work for me with colds – could shorten the cold more than that or lessen the symptoms.
The Zicam does. I don’t know how it does, but it does. I’ve used it during three colds. Each cold lasted a week; instead having to crawl directly into bed I felt well enough to exercise during the first couple of days. Throughout the cold the symptoms were much less severe. Four or five days into the cold I could tell I was getting better and within a week I was well. In short,* I had a normal cold, like every one else has.* Let me make it clear I have not had one of those in well over a decade. I had given up the hope of ever having one again and, consequently, had developed an extreme paranoia about colds.
After that first cold using Zicam, I tried it the next two times I caught a cold and each time it worked. I swear by the stuff.
But if all you have are normal colds to begin with, I don’t see how it can possibly shorten them from 3 - 7 days down to a day and a half(!) to three and a half days. I don’t know, maybe it mighten lessen the severity of the symptoms, but I think the cold would still take its usual length.
When I first became aware of Zicam, I posted a thread in which I said the study they were advertising as proof of its effectiveness only involved 32 subjects. Hardly convincing, but I seem to remember they’ve done a somewhat larger study since then. I’m still not convinced. (Sorry I don’t have time to look up their studies again.)
There are certainly some medicines that call themselves homeopathic not because they’re actually based on the ‘law of similars’ and the ‘law of dilution’, but rather because the FDA has special rules for homeopathy. One assumes the hoops are a lot easier to get through, since most of these 1/2-ounce-of-distilled-water-for-45-bucks ‘remedies’ couldn’t pass any actual scrutiny of any kind.
I think Zicam’s main action is merely soothing, though the zinc may or may not have a little effect. It needs more study.
Interesting question. Is it possible that you subjectively thought your daughter was crying less, when in fact she wasn’t? Or maybe you misinterpreted teething cries to mean something else? Of course, it’s always possible it just got better anyway at that point. And I suppose it’s possible the homeopathic remedy actually worked, but I remain skeptical.
This may well explain a lot. Perhaps there are “homeopthic” that really aren’t homeopathic.
Special circumstances lead me away from that explanation. The use of the tablets was to get help daughter to sleep the night. Without tablets, she’d routinely wake up in the middle of the night and cry loud enough for us to awaken. With the tablets, she virtually never did (I’m sure she did, but not that I can specifically recall).
In this case, there was a threshhold she needed to reach with her cries. She needed to cry loud enough to waken us up … so we weren’t awake to evaluate what kind of cry she was delivering.
Of course, it’s always possible it just got better anyway at that point. And I suppose it’s possible the homeopathic remedy actually worked, but I remain skeptical.
Her teething may have begun to subside on its own, no doubt.
Yes, there are many such products. The reason for this is that consumers are more likely to buy products called “homeopathic” than simply “natural” or “some zinc in a gel”. However, calling yourself homeopathic does not allow you to exploit a “loophole” in FDA regulations. Homeopathic, natural, alternative, and dietary supplements are all only loosely regulated by the FDA (In fact, calling yourself homeopathic appears to force compliance with additional regulations). Without FDA approval as a drug, they usually cannot claim to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease or symptoms. However, Cold-Eze and other zinc cold remedies can apparently claim to be clinically proven to help with the common cold based on the clinical trials which have been conducted, check out Cecil’s column for more details.
Personally, I’ve been thinking about starting a non-profit foundation to settle this zinc/cold debate once and for all. Tons of people want to know if it really works, all I would need is to get a bunch of small donations from a lot of people and turn it into a research grant for a respectable university. Address all the problems of previous studies by using a large sample size, bad tasting placebos, actual doctor exams to assess symptoms, etc. I think if zinc was patentable we would have already seen this done, given the promise it shows.
Of course, I wouldn’t put that stuff up anyone’s nose. Way too much risk of damaging one’s sense of smell.
Oh, I forgot to include a link to James Randi’s commentary on the subject. Scroll down to the end where he discusses the fact that the “1x” preparation in Zicam really stretches the definition of homeopathy and actually contains a decent amount of the stated active ingredient.
You get the cold of death also? :eek: My colds used to last 6-8 weeks with them settling in my chest triggering a cough response every time I took a breath. Then I found Zicam.
I was starting to get a cold. My bike riding partner suggested Zicam. I bought some, and only after I opened the package I noticed the homeopathic label. Great I thought I just flushed $10 down the toilet, but my buddy says it works so what the hell, I’ll try it.
Two days later I had no more cold. Since I fully expected this stuff not to work, I think that I can discount the Placebo effect. How it works, why it works I do not know. It does work for me. YMMV
LMAO
Oh, that’s hysterical. “Cold of death!”
What a perfect name for it. Especially as, after the sleep deprivation set in from the ceaseless coughing, I really didn’t care if I lived or died. If someone had broken into my house and threatened to kill me, I’d have thanked him for it.
From here on out, that is what I will always call it.
YAY for Zicam. Three cheers!
Only those of us who suffer from “the cold of death” truly understand how great it is. Remind me to see if they have a website, I should tell them what a difference it makes in my life.
So, how is the nasal gel supposed to work when it just sits in the bottom of your nose?
How does an aspirin cure my headache? How does it know the difference between when I have a headache and when I have cramps? (Okay, no one answer those. I’m being rhetorical.)
I don’t know. I can guess. Perhaps it gets absorbed into the bloodstream. Perhaps it adheres to the lining and the dosage is taken in by a vapor effect, much like Vick’s Vapor Rub.
Zicam also comes in a nasal spray. I think it also comes in a throat spray and lozanges.
I do use the nasal gel, and I ain’t messin’ with a good thing.
But by claiming that Zicam is homeopathic, the manufacturer was able to get their product to market immediately without waiting for the bothersome clinical trials that establish with certainty that the product is safe and effective. I doubt that Zicam could have sneaked in through the “supplemental” loophole, so this was their only choice.
In order to be homeopathic, I presume the manufacturer had to show that Zinc in higher doses produces cold-like symptoms. Sure, squirt half a liter of Zicam in your nose, and your nose runs, therefore the homeopathic folks put it on their list of things homeopathic, and now the FDA can’t touch it.