I have a bit of a cold. Not hacking to death yet, nor going through one tissue box every three hours - not yet. I did stock up on soup. (About $40 worth, hehehehe. Good thing I like soup.)
As I was leaving the grocery store, I saw an advertisement stating that orange juice is good fbecause it has vitamin C, which builds up the immune system, which helps defeat or prevent (forgot which) colds. Now, I love orange juice. But we don’t have any at home because orange juice is very, very bad for blood sugar (I, my sister, and my mother are diabetic - only my brother and father aren’t, and they’re not too hot about orange juice).
If I have a cold, and I want to drink orange juice to help me get rid of it, how much should I drink (if at all)? One glass at every (soupy) meal? One glass a day? None? (If it makes any difference, I have diabetes I.) Or is having a cold a bit too late to start taking in lots of vitamin C?
WRS - Orange Juice - the Beverage of Choice in Mordor.
There are vitamin C tablets available which won’t cause you to get sugardrunk.
If you haven’t gone to a diabetes education class yet, go to one. The instructors will help you figure out a plan of action to use when you’re sick. They’ll also teach you how to cope with other problems of living as a diabetic. Many insurance companies are quite willing to pay for the cost of the class, because a diabetic who is taking good care of himself tends to have fewer and lower medical bills than a diabetic who is out of control.
My personal soup of choice is chicken with rice or vegetable beef.
And do ask your doctor what YOU should do when you have a cold.
Vitamin C tablets sound safer than OJ.
The ones I have also contain Cellulose,Stearic Acid,Calcium Stearate and Silica. Cellulose is a carbohydrate, but I believe poorly digested, and the bottle has no diabetic warnings. Still ask your doctor or at least the pharmasist.
I find vitamine C helps a cold, I am 90% sure this is just the placebo effect, but thats still good for feeling better. I susspect the chewable tablets are more likely to contain sugars, as they have to taste nice. Garlic is supposed to be good for colds, and I find hot spices helpful, as they clear your passages, and they are strong enough to taste even when your nose is blocked.
There’s no good evidence that vitamin C makes much difference in the course of a cold, or in its prevention. Ditto for orange juice. And recent studies even say that over-hydrating may make cold symptoms worse, so one may want to watch the fluids.
Steam, tylenol if able, and stick with your diet and exercise routine, along with your DM meds as prescribed, is the best recipe for colds for most diabetics. And if in doubt, check with your doctor.
I think all in all a consultation with the doctor may be in order.
I caught myself going through a weird dialogue:
“They’re right. I should see a doctor.”
“Why see the doctor now? You’re sick! Wait until you get better and have wonderful blood sugar levels to show him. Otherwise he’ll be unhappy with your performance, as usual.”
“But, am I not supposed to go to doctor when I’m sick?”
“Oh, sure. Next time you have a slight headache call an ambulance, will you? You’ve never gone to the doctor when you were sick before. Why now?”
“But . . . but . . . aren’t doctors for when I’m sick?”
“[insert incoherent rambling]”
“Oh, shut up. These people are smart. They know what they’re talking about.”
End of dialogue.
Of course, thanks to Qadgop the Mercotan, I will never have an excuse to drink orange juice now. Fighting ignorance is such a deflater. (Kidding! Thanks, QtM: I always learn something when you post.)
I feel your pain, Thu. (I don’t know why I’m calling you that, but it is shorter. ) I’m not diabetic, but I am trying to eat low-sugar, and I also love orange juice and have had to kick it out of my diet. <Heavy sigh> At least I can still eat oranges. Lovely, luscious, juicy oranges.
Absolutely indigestible. Cellullose is aka “alimentary fiber”: it’s what makes up most of a sheet of paper and also the part of veggies that, uhm… goes out .
An alimentary source of vitamin C that doesn’t have sugar is shellfish, but of course I’m hoping you’re not allergic. I don’t remember what is the English name of berberechos, but I have seen berberechos cans in the US and they usually have the lettering in several languages (they’re white and the cans are the flattish oval type, never seen round ones, and they go very well with a bit of lemon); those and clams have a lot of vitamin C, even after canning (the canning process boils them, yes, but in the absence of air, so the vitamin doesn’t get oxidized). For the non-diabetic, try kiwis (the small, round, hairy ones, not the ones with two legs); also eating fruit instead of taking juice has the advantage of extra fiber.
If you decide to go for pills, it is better to get one that’s just vitamin C and take it during the winter only than to get used to taking multivitamins. At least according to every doctor around here, I’m just an engineer…
(on an aside, I think I need a keyboard without parenthesis keys)
“worse” is in the eye of the beholder… or the throat of the cold-sufferer. If I have a dry cough, the scar from my right tonsil hurts and has been known to bleed. I’d rather have phlegm. Apologies for the mental images.
Milk definitely rises phlegm; tea does but a lot less. Water doesn’t appear to have an effect. Not a coffee drinker so I don’t know about that one.
Orange Juice (and Vitamin C for that matter) is something that helps your immune-system.
You should use it for years to build up your resistance against the cold.
When you have got the cold you are already to late.
You should use these vitamins every day for your entire life, not only when you are being sick because it doesn’t make much sense.
A lot of people seem to think that Vitamin C is a wonder-cure, it is not.
(By the way : I am not a doctor or anything, but that is what I have been taught).
Got a cite for that old wive’s tale? No credible studies have turned up evidence that dairy thickens secretions. In fact, they tend to show it has no effect on secretions.
I thought there was some cellulose breakdown by bacteria in the gut even in humans. Does anyone know if that is wrong or right?
Qadgop why is it that Doctors seem to avoid making use of the placebo effect? Though it has no direct medical effect, if rubbing your nose with a banana makes you feel better, why not do it simply for the placebo effect?
We prefer, of course, that all call Us The Dark Lord Sauron Annatar Gorthaur, but as this is quite long, We shall condescend to permit that if Thû rocks your boat, go for it.
Bippy the Beardless: I suppose it comes from doctors wanting to be sure what they say, recommend, or tolerate. The scientific method and all that.
People are free to go and follow old wives’ tales if it works for them: mind over matter is a powerful thing indeed. But I doubt many doctors will actually root for such treatments. If they get involved, they want to play safe and do what’s been proven or explained to work. When they do clinical trials, they find something that actually works because it does what it’s supposed to do, rather than from the placebo affect. If the trials fail, they don’t say, “Oh well: the placebo worked. Let’s sell that.” Otherwise, companies would be issuing sugar pills up the wazoo: you don’t see people selling Claritin and Claritin-P (for “placebo”) - the drug tested and the placebo it was tested against, since both worked.
But this is simply my understanding: I can be wrong.
