Cold -- what do you do?

[jana]

I've got hit with a nasty cold (again) and I'm curious what other people do to relieve their cold symptoms. What works for you, what doesn't? I've tried to distract myself with things like computer games, my favorite TV shows, and working on a DW style/layout, but sadly, I can't do any of it for too long before I get a headache... I'm also drinking lots of fluids (mostly herbal tee), doing steam inhalation every couple of hours (it's great as long as I keep my head under the towel, but it doesn't seem to have any lasting effect) and I use nasal spray to be able to breath at least once or twice a day...

I hope it's okay to post this here since 'health' is listed as a community interest and I couldn't find another community to ask this question. And I'm desperate ;)

EDIT: Thanks so much everyone, for taking the time and sharing your great tips! I'll answer all your comments in more detail soon (= when I'm up on my feet again) :)

Comments

Garlic and antihistamines

[kathmandu]

If you microwave-roast at least 5 or 6 cloves of garlic and eat them, your nasal symptoms will clear up for about half an hour. It's a brief effect, but it's great to feel almost normal for that half-hour.

Antihistamines have a milder effect, but lasting longer; they're good to take before bed so you can sleep. Active ingredient should be clemastine fumarate or chlorfeniramine maleate.

Re: Garlic and antihistamines

[gretel]

My housemate and grandfather just eat them raw and it works just as well apparently.

Um, my granddad is a bit weird though, I think he might also just eat them raw all the time as well because he enjoys being a crazy old man.

Re: Garlic and antihistamines

[kathmandu]

Well, yes, it's probably even MORE effective raw, but I can't stand the harshness of the raw flavor. Roasting is my way of toning it down.

[staranise]

I use a decongestant, like Benadryl Benylin, the active ingredient of which is Dextromethorphan, which at least keeps my sinuses from feeling they're packed with cotton.

If my coughing is really bad, I take codeine for it--in Canada I can buy Tylenol 1 pills of acetaminophen and codeine over the counter. Codeine is an antitussive.

(As you can see, I believe that the best medicine is medicine. I have physical disabilities and chronic pain which means for me, natural remedies often aren't effective enough. Not to diss natural remedies, but I kinda need the big guns.)

If I can't concentrate on things visually, I like to lie back on a heatpack and listen to an audiobook or podfic.

[thesynchronomes]

I try and keep warm as much as possible (wear jumpers, hot water bottles). Staring at screens also aggravates a bad head, so I keep laptop activity to a minimum. Rest up loads as well - a couple of weeks ago, I slept for 12 hours straight after a particularly nasty snot-filled day and it did me a world of good. Even if I can't get to sleep straight away (and it often does take me a while, when I'm ill) just resting my body helps.

Hope you feel better soon.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Often, with a cold, my facial muscles get pinched and tired, so I soak a washcloth in really hot water, wring it out real quick, and then tilt my head back and let the washcloth cool while spread over my face. It's like a tiny little sauna, as it relaxes your face and has the same effects of steam-breathing.

Also, anything you can do to keep the mucus moving, if you're stuffy (baths are great) and wash your sheets a little more often than you would otherwise. For chest congestion, I suggest tea and other warm things.

[sage]

Funny you post this. I came down with a cold on Tuesday, but I kicked in in 48 hours. Here's what I do:

1. Garlic-ginger-honey tea. This recipe was given to me by a friend who was a hospital nurse for 35 yrs. Take 6 large or 10 small cloves of garlic along with a heaping tablespoon of grated fresh ginger root and bring to a boil in 6 cups of water, then simmer for an hour. You can add a little more water to make up for escaped steam. Ladle the tea into mason jars with lids and refrigerate for when you need it. To use: Pour one 8oz. cup of the tea (reheat in microwave if necessary) into a mug and dose with a liberal amount of honey. (Drinking it without the honey is nasty not advised. *g*) Garlic, ginger, and honey all have anti-microbial properties, and this is a powerful herbal remedy.

2. Garlic honey. You can chop up garlic cloves, allowing them to sit in the air for at least ten minutes for the allicin to activate (through oxidation of the cut garlic surface). In fact, the above tea is more potent when you cut the cloves in half and let them sit ten minutes before immersing them. But for garlic honey, you place the chopped fresh garlic into the honey and let it infuse. After about 48 hours, you can use the honey by the spoonful as a cough suppressant -- and it works really well. If the taste is too strong, you can mix it in a little lemon water. After a few weeks, the garlic in the honey turns to a crystalline candy. It's still garlic, obviously, so be aware of that if you decide to give it a nibble, but it's sweeter than it otherwise would be.

3. Sinus rinse. I have a squeeze bottle by Neil Med given to me by my allergist that I use in lieu of a neti pot. 1/2 tsp of sea salt in 8 oz. skin-temp water does WONDERS. Nothing gets rid of a cold quite like manually flushing the gick out of your sinuses. Steam might expand them, but that doesn't help near as much as physically cleaning them out.

4. Apparently Traditional Medicinals doesn't make it anymore, but I have an old box of "Breathing Thyme" tea in my cupboard. I add lemon and honey for throat benefit, but Wednesday, when the snot-monster was at its worst, my sinuses were clear within ten minutes of drinking it. Here's a link with a bunch of home cold remedies that includes a recipe for making your own thyme tea (be aware that overdosing on thyme tea can slow your heart rate, so don't drink more than a few cups a day if you're prone to having a slow pulse).

5. Soup and avoiding temperature imbalances. The thing with temperature imbalances is a really big deal with me. Like, if it's just gone from hot to cold, eating frozen strawberries or going out onto cold concrete without shoes is enough to give me a cold (cf Tuesday). Making a stock pot full of warm delicious soup to live on until I feel better and to keep me warm = super healing. I eat what I want and put the rest in 16oz mason jars in the freezer, which is just the right amount for a good sized serving. (If you freeze mason jars, make sure their package was marked with a snowflake -- not all tempered glass is safe to freeze.)

6. SLEEP. Physical regeneration requires sleep. Between Tuesday and Thursday, I slept something like 30 hours. It was glorious, and today I'm fine. *g*

I hope you feel better very fast!


edit: I should have also said that I take a daily Zyrtec for allergies, so an antihistamine was already going.

[miome]

Seconding the Neil Med squeeze bottle - that thing is wonderful.

Also, maybe this is super-obvious, but vitamin C helps. My preferred form is the time-release tablets.

[telophase]

I used to get those sort of colds where the cough gets really horrible (it scares the people around me!) and lingers for WEEKS and often turns into bronchitis.

Then I got a humidifier and started running it overnight in the bedroom while I slept. SO MUCH BETTER. Now the only times I've gotten those horrible coughs are when I haven't been able to run the humidifier at night, like when I'm traveling and get sick.

I've got a cough now that's lasted for six weeks, and I'm pretty sure it's because I caught the cold in England when we were on vacation and I was unable to run a humidifier at night. (Ran it after I got back, but seems to have been too late.)

[sid]

An extra pillow at night can really help with the breathing!

It is hard to distract yourself if everything is headache-inducing. Got a deck of cards? Listening to music and playing solitaire would pass some time.

Do you cook? Even if your appetite isn't much while you're sick, cooking passes the time and has a fruitful result. You can always freeze what you're not going to eat any time soon. For some reason I always find that my sinuses are the clearest when I'm up and on my feet, so messing around the kitchen works for me. And if you enjoy spicy food, preparing and eating some of that will clear your sinuses temporarily! Just be sure to wash your hands a lot if anyone else is going to be eating what you cook. *g*

[morwen_peredhil]

Neti pot
Foods with lots of garlic, ginger, and/or hot peppers
Sleeping propped up on lots of pillows
Ricola lozenges
Nyquil at night and Sudafed during the day

[jadey]

I've been getting sucked under by colds every few weeks for the last couple of months (grad school - the only thing that staves off infection and death is deadline-stress, and once the deadline passes, so does its protective factor), and my basic strategy is to crawl into bed, pray for death, and cram my body full of as much lemon, honey, and garlic (sometimes in combination, sometimes not) as possible. In general I find constant eating to be my only solace, especially warm and carb-heavy foods (mmm, garlic butter mashed potatoes). But that might just be me. If it's bad sinus-y cold, sometimes I will turn my bathroom into a steambox and just curl up under the hot shower spray for a while, although that kind of water consumption really kicks mother nature in the teeth (also, hot water bill).

Sleeping and eating - just the basics, really.

[jadey]

And it looks like it's not just me! I also use nasal rinses, especially right before bed to help me sleep.

[freya46]

I take 2750 mcg of garlic X 4 and 2000 mg of Vit.C every day and I've not had a cold in close to three years. That's after generally get 4-6 a year.

(((((HUGS))) Feel better.

[gretel]

I spray everything in my house possible with Euculyptus oil. I used to use an oil burner, but then I discovered that you can buy that stuff in a spray can. It doesn't have a miracle cure type effect but it does help dry all the snot out.

My house has not been the same since, I also use this for cleaning, bug bites, deoderising the house AND annoying my partner so he gets up in the morning. Most useful thing I have every bought.

[ex_pippin880]

My colds 99% of the time turn into sinus or chest infections so I mainly just take an antihistimine and maybe some cough syrup at night and wait for the inevitable. :( /helpful

[karel]

Theraflu is honestly my go-to thing for whenever I'm feeling under the weather. It clears up my symptoms and ends whatever's messing with me much more quickly than it would end by itself.

The only problem is that the drink tastes just horrible, so if you go with that option, as opposed to the other forms, I'd suggest to mix it up as a shot. You boil up some water, mix it until it won't mix anymore in a shot-glass (kool-aid sugar style!), then down it. Makes it much easier than using a whole coffee mug. Then chase with something like orange juice.