# Your Cure For The Common Cold? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669 "2004-07-18T05:54:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669/21 "2004-07-19T15:24:34Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by emulsified_ > For those couple days where the cold is at its worst and my head feels like its clogged with contruction adhesive, at bedtime I do a couple toots of Afrin nasal spray. For 12 hours straight you can breathe clean and free through your nose, which is truly a blessing when you’re sick. > > You have to be a bit careful with it though. You can get addicted. I limit myself to two days of use. Plus there can be a rebound effect where you feel stuffed up worse when you stop using it. But with self-limiting, I’ve avoided that. If, by chance, one were to become addicted to the stuff or have a rebound effect, you can use the stuff in just the right nostril, while the left one returns to normal. Then, when you stop using it in the right one, you will be able to breathe through the left one. IANAD, but this is advice given to me by a doctor, before I found my miracle allergy druf: Flonase. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669/22 "2004-07-19T16:28:50Z")
I skimmed only quickly but no one mentioned herbal tea? Echinecea tea? Also, sometimes your body will tell you. I HATE Orange Juice with a passion but when I’m sick I have a craving for it. I think it is my body telling me to get some Vitamin C in me. Make sure you eat. I know, you don’t feel like it, but the machine needs fuel. Oh, and BLOW YOUR NOSE regularly. Like, constantly. Get Puffs Plus or Vaseline or whatever you need, but just do it. If you don’t after your cold is over you will still have a stuffed up nose for weeks after. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669/23 "2004-07-19T17:38:39Z")
Thank you all…I have gone through several boxes of Kleenex in the last few days. Slept 9-10 hours a day, drank half a gallon of orange juice, took aspirins and have been eating well. I am “better” today than I was on Friday, but still not 100%…although I did come into work today - my desk is in a quiet corner by myself so I will stay in hiding at the office until I feel better. Thanks for the suggestions, but I think it was too late for many of them to have helped…but next time I feel a cold coming out, I think I will pull out my printed copy of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669/24 "2004-07-19T19:29:34Z")
This thread is for external use only. Do not apply internally. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669/25 "2004-07-19T20:13:13Z")
I don’t seem to get head colds much anymore. Maybe once in the last five years and the last one was a doozy: double ear infection/sinus infection/throat infection…while pregnant…Yay for me! What I usually get is a cough. I like to steam my head over a bowl of cloves. It just smells good. I blow all the gunk out. I drink loads of hot tea, keep my chest warm, take hot baths and sleep. I avoid any straining or talking, as it aggrevates the situation and I end up hacking up a lung. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I were a smoker. Gah. The problem with **Echinachea** is that if you have any allergies to the daisy family, it will irritate this allergy. **Zicam** works wonders in lessening the symptons of a runny nose. I use it on my kids and we don’t have the crust nose situation anymore. I am surprised this stuff isn’t more popular. **Afrin** is also most excellent and highly recommended. I try not to suppress the symptons, but to encourage them to expell. I took an old **Afrin** nasal shot thingie, filled it with warm water ( not saline…I’m too lazy to actually mix in salt) and in the shower I shoot warm water up my delicate schnoz and let it drain out the other nostril. The first time I read about it I nearly hurled, now I do it gladly. It alleviates spring allergy problems and dust situations too. In the real world, you can use what is called a **neti pot** which retails for about $19 on up. An old Afrin nasal spray thingie works just the same and takes up less medicine cabinet space. I once found an homeopathic medicine that I grabbed by mistake in the RX aisle at the store during a Massive Horrendous Cold Epidemic at my office. I was in the beginning of Something Nasty and was too ill in the aisle to see what I bought before I rushed back to the office to hack up a lung and blow my nose nonstop. Whatever it was - to this day I can’t recall - I ended up blowing my nose more and all I could think of was, " This stuff is utter crap." But, I continued to take it because I was a dipshit and I was too tired and had no extra cash to buy more RX on route home and I took it twice more before passing out into bed, an entire box of tissue used up on the first day of a Really Bad Cold. Everyone at work knew I would be calling in sick the next day because I Had It Bad. I woke up sympton free and went merrily into work. I am reticent about Homeopathic stuff, but if I could find this stuff again I would buy it in a heart beat. I think it was by Boiron. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-cure-for-the-common-cold/255669.md?page=1)