Warning: A TMI opinion poll! While those annoying commercials of the talking snot glob have been wasted on me, I only tried Musinex recently looking for something different on the OTC shelf. So, I tried Musinex expectorant 12-hr tablets which contain 600mg of goo-loosening medication. Hmm… :dubious:
Now, 600 mg (per pill) is the highest dose one can find, and one CAN take up to two of these things! :eek: All other OTCs I found contain between 200mg - 400mg max of the same active ingredient per an adult dose, although they last 4-6 hours.
I can only conclude the stuff works too well - making me feel worse, really. Instead of stuff unproductively sitting in my chest, this med did seem to loosen the chest congestion, but with no place for (most of the phlegm) to go. I swung from one extreme to the other: from being rather dry and congested to being very drippy and miserable with a more-pronounced, phlegmy cough.
What do other SDopers say about their Mucinex experiences?
Do they feel it works TOO well?
The thing about guaifenesin is that it is SUPPOSED to draw moisture into the nasty thick mucus so that you can hrock it out, or blow your nose. THe problem is you are not drinking enough liquid … see mucus is actually pretty watery when it is normal, and normally the crap in your nose just drains down the back of your throat without you noticing it, and the vilii sort of crawl the mucus out of your lungs and dump it down your throat without you noticing it. When you notice it, it is thick and glorpy and the vilii cant move it around, you need to hack up a lung to clear it out.
I take one with essentially a quart of water or warm tea, and make sure to drink another quart or so over the next 4 hours. Then I just go back to my regular amount of water, lime water or tea [about a cup an hour] and I am clear. My chest isnt filled with cement, I have a good productive cough instead of dry hacking that might produce a wad of dried phlegm, andd my nose stayes pretty clear as well.
Of course I also have another side effect … but it isone that only women should worry about. All the mucus in the body gets … um … liquider. I wear a panty liner. :rolleyes:
My doctor prescribed it for me when I had a persistent sinus infection. It produced an artesian profusion of snot, probably washing every microbe out of my sinuses. I used most of a box of Puffs Ultra tissues in a day or two. It made me wish I had not given away my gravity boots. I could have hung upside down over an oil change pan in the garage, saving the tissues.
Mucinex is sometimes the only thing that helps my asthmatic mom get over her fits. She has an inhaler, and a nebulizer–but the latter makes her very shaky and she feels worse than before if she uses it.
I use it for the same reason, and it’s reasonably effective.
Jinx, are you following the directions when you take it? Unlike most other otc things, you are supposed to drink an entire glass of water with the pill; probably for the reason aruvqan gave.
I love the stuff–I started taking it back when it was by prescription only. It got the sludge moving out of my sinuses. It also revs me up in an odd way–I just don’t get tired, but if I choose to sleep, I can. And I pop up like a jack-in-the-box when the alarm goes off, no matter how little sleep I’ve had.
I discovered this when I was trying to finish some research and had a miserable sinus infection. It’s a very handy side-effect when one’s thesis is long overdue.
(And it was quite pricey for an OTC med, I thought.)
My nose runs all the freakin’ time in winter. I will never again compare my nose to a faucet.