I’m sick. The fever’s pretty much gone, but nothing I’m taking really fixes the cough, which is to the point where it hurts like a bastard. I can’t find my cough drops, hot tea with honey isn’t really doing the trick, and I have just GOT to stop coughing. Is there anything I can make with home ingredients that would help? (I just don’t feel like getting in the car and going to buy cough drops or anything, plus I heard cough syrup doesn’t actually work - is that true?)
Can you believe I decided to get a new dog and then immediately come down with the Cold of the Year? Christ, I ought to have my head examined.
My mother used to make cough syrup with an onion and brown sugar.
Put brown sugar in a bowl. Cut an onion in half. Put it on top of the sugar. Wait for the juice to come out of it and permeate the sugar. Then eat or drink it, depending on consistency.
Drawbacks - takes ages and smells like the most pungent disgusting body odour I have ever encountered. But if you have a cold maybe you can’t smell it! Yum yum.
Doing some more research, I’ll point out some interesting facts:
Codeine is generally regarded as the most powerful cough medicine there is. But even in the case of codeine, 80-85% of the efficacy is due to a placebo effect. Thus, essentially anything you expect to work is likely to work as the most powerful cough medicine there is. But, this also means that the placebo effect is, in essence, one of the largest cough suppressing effects that there is.
Theobromine (chocolate) is in the one study actually more effective than codeine, but that was a double blind study. The people taking the theobromine believed that they were taking a medicine. If you don’t believe that eating chocolate is an effective cough medication, it is unlikely to work as effectively as it performed in the test. Though, it will still outperform a codeine pill that you didn’t believe in the efficacy of either.
Assuming you haven’t got any exotic herbs lying around the house (no, not those herbs. I mean elecampane and slippery elm and so on) and you are out of Vick’s vapo-rub, you can try the 1-1-1-1-2 cough syrup (so named by how you remember what goes in it):
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 Tablespoon honey
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons water
It tastes like hell. But it does stop the cough.
ETA: on review I think I would go with the dark chocolate. Good for the whole person so to speak.
I got an rx for robitussun with codeine,and i was awesome. Then I developed an an allergy, and it was taken from me. Now I’m on nyquil. It’s not the same…
Caramelize a couple tablespoons of sugar in a small pan (even better, in Turkish coffee pot). Pour in a healthy slug of slivovitz. Continue heating until the caramelized sugar is dissolved in the liquor. Drink.
If it doesn’t stop the cough, you won’t care anyway.
My mom always gave me (the asthmatic, bronchitisy sort) cough medicine made from whiskey, honey, and lemon. My aunt made some sort of cough medicine that killed a cough dead, and it was highly alcoholic, but the secret recipe died with her. I embarrassed my mom to death when she took me to the pediatrician and he asked, “What having you been taking for the cough?” I replied, “Doney’s home brew.”
I recently discovered that strong licorice candy will soothe a cough. When I checked wikipedia to see if my observation was true, indeed, licorice was listed as a traditional remedy for cough. (However, licorice seems to be listed as a traditional remedy for everything in the known universe.)
I read the onion & sugar syrup remedy in an issue of REMINISCE. It was recounted that it was used for a sick baby, probably saved his life, but resulted in some horridly smelly diapers.
You guys are in trouble. When I checked after I posted this just the first response was in, so I said, hey, I’ll try chocolate! And it worked! I had a beautiful twelve hour restful no coughing nap! And then I came back and read all about chocolate and the placebo effect and now it doesn’t work anymore.
Liquor still helps, but I’m back at work today and somebody might notice.
The fever’s pretty much gone, but nothing I’m taking really fixes the cough, which is to the point where it hurts like a bastard. I can’t find my cough drops, hot tea with honey isn’t really doing the trick, and I have just GOT to stop coughing. Is there anything I can make with home ingredients that would help? (I just don’t feel like getting in the car and going to buy cough drops or anything, plus I heard cough syrup doesn’t actually work - is that true?)
When I checked after I posted this just the first response was in, so I said, hey, I’ll try chocolate! And it worked! I had a beautiful twelve hour restful no coughing nap! And then I came back and read all about chocolate and the placebo effect and now it doesn’t work anymore.