Because, dammit, I don’t want to be wallowing here in solitary misery! Come be miserable with me, please.
It started a few hours ago: the headache, the sore throat, the scratchiness in my voice, the sinus stuffiness, the ear pressure, the overall feeling crummy, with the beginnings of achiness all over. Damn!
It’s partly my own fault, for not being as fanatical about masking in any public space lately. At least, according to the home test I just did, it isn’t COVID, I took Claritin and ibuprofen and hopefully that will reduce the misery, and I have plenty of food on hand so I won’t have to venture out any time soon.
One bummer is that my sister is coming down from Vermont to visit me tomorrow. We were going to have lunch, go for a walk. Guess that’s off the table now, and we’ll just sit for a couple of hours, masked up, and have a chat before she leaves to visit a friend in a nearby town.
This sucks. I haven’t had a real serious nasty cold since I started COVID and I’m out of practice at feeling sorry for myself.
Yeah, I’m coming down with one also. Timing couldn’t be worse. I’m in the final push week for a federal grant. I’ve felt crappy and tired (like fall asleep at any moment tired) with tender lymph nodes all day. And tonight I’m starting to feel it in my throat. Holding out hope I can fight it off, but I feel like I’m losing.
Bummer! I do feel somewhat better with the Claritin and ibuprofen plus a small but healthy supper aboard now, but the cold is still there, just biding its time before flaring up again.
The best med I’ve taken for colds is Cold & Sinus with Ibuprofen & Pseudoephedrine. It’s not on the shelf, you have to ask for it. It’s kept behind the counter and you have to show them your ID. But it works.
Behind the counter, you have to ask for it and having to show ID is key to getting an effective decongestant. The sound-alike drug in DayQuil, NyQuil, etc has been repeatedly shown to be ineffective.
If it wasn’t behind the counter and if you didn’t have to have your ID recorded to buy it you’re not getting effective decongesting. Which means you have to get to the store during the open hours of the pharmacy, not just the store. I just make sure to always have a small supply at home because inevitably that cold nastiness hits first when the pharmacies are all closed.
I was taught that it should be lemon, honey and whiskey. The theory apparently was that the lemon provided vitamin C to fight the cold, the honey made the lemon juice more palatable, and the whiskey helped make you feel better while you waited for the lemon to take effect.
My beloved let me sleep in today and took the boy to daycare. I would have slept all day if I could, but grants. I’m mostly where I need to be so hoping to get more rest in today.
It really sucks when your body is all, “Sleep! You need sleep!” but you have to ignore it due to deadlines.
Go to a pharmacy, ask the pharmacist for pseudoephedrine* (brand name Sudafed but generic is just fine), show them your ID. Take the pseudoephedrine as scheduled, then take your preferred Tylenol/acetaminophen at the dosages your doctor recommends for you. While you’re at the pharmacy, take advantage of the opportunity to ask the pharmacist if pseudoephedrine is contraindicated for you. It’s why they go to pharmacy school all those years.
Not using combination products like DayQuil or NyQuil is not only cheaper for you it’s better for you as well. Take the Tylenol only as long as needed for fever or the aches and the pseudoephedrine only while you need congestion/stuffiness relief. Be aware that pseudoephedrine too close to bedtime can cause sleeplessness.
I handle that by buying both 12 hour sustained release that I can take in the morning and it wears off enough by bedtime that I can sleep 14-15 hours later and getting a package of immediate release (4-6 hour duration) pills if the congestion hits mid-day or I need to bracket some extra relief in after the 12 hour morning dose.
Plenty of Sudafed around here (Lady SCAdian and our daughter often have it on hand), but a quick Google search shows that it and Coumadin do not play well together.
Do you take vitamin supplements? I take something called, “EmergenC”. It’s a powdered supplement that goes, for me, in water, every morning. Ever since I started a few years back, it cut my virus events in half.
When I do get sick, Nyquil is my go-to because it allows me to get a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep, and that does more to help me recover as quickly as possible than anything else.
Sleep as much as possible, and you’ll be all better before ya’ know it!
A week ago this evening I was lecturing on poisonings and overdoses, including a section on how deadly acetaminophen (Tylenol) overdoses are, and how easily they happen when people take multiple “cold and flu” type products, not knowing which or how many already contain acetaminophen. (So please be careful !)
By the last half hour of the talk, I was feeling kinda funny, By the time I was driving home I felt awful. I went right to bed and, despite the electric blanket, couldn’t get warm, shivered for hours and finally got up in the wee hours to find a thermometer. 102.4 degrees. Took 975 mg. of acetaminophen and was comfortable fairly soon. I alternated that with ibuprofen every 4 to 6 hours. Is it just ibuprofen you can’t take? or any NSAIDs ?
I was mostly better within 24 hours, but have been fatigued and easily exhausted this whole week. So I am empathizing. I hope you’ll be better soon.
