I feel so bad! Need help!

[Lady Freedom]

What are some of your ways to fight a cold? Please tell? I need everything I can get! :(

[ewagner]

1. Hot Toddies!

Lotsa sleep.

[KCDem]

2. rest and fluids.

Lots of water and hot tea with lemon. And rest... try not to do anything you don't have to.

Feel better!

[MissMillie]

3. When you find out let me know

I've been fighting this one for nearly a week now. As soon as one symptom clears up, another one rears its ugly head, and then back to the first. It's driving me NUTS!!!!!

[LuLu550]

4. zinc!

I tried those new zinc lozenges for the fist time a few weeks ago and my cold was gone in three days! They taste terrible, but they work!
Hope you feel better!

[DUreader]

9. Zinc Good, Ginger Tea with Honey

simmer chopped ginger root in water, strain, add enough honey

to take the edge off or as sweet as you like it.

[onebigbadwulf]

5. You shouldn't let it get that far

Everytime you start to feel that oncomming sick feeling you need to take 2-4 echinacea and sleep 10-12hours THAT night. I haven't been sick in 2 years... unless you count that whole too much fast food gave me a kidney stone thing.

[Rashind]

6. Sleep is one hot bitch.

Go to bed really early, and set your alarm for as late as you can afford to. In the morning, avoid milk and eggs, they'll give you more mucus than you know what to do with. Just shower (for as long as you'd like, the warm water will help break up your mucus), take some daytime cold medicine, and eat something for breakfast. Get like 10 times your daily vitamin C somehow. Vitamin C lozenges work well. Eat them like candy.

When you get home from work, have some orange juice or hot tea and go straight to bed for an hour or two nap if you're at all tired. If not, stay up until a reasonable bedtime and get a strong night of sleep again. Hopefully you'll feel better after a day of treating yourself right.

[Lady Freedom]

10. No OJ for me...

It breaks me out!

[bearfan454]

7. Make some homemade chicken soup.

The easy way is:

Boil some angel hair noodles and rinse and drain them. Open 3 cans of fat free chicken broth and put in a pot with a can of carrots, a chopped up onion, chopped celery, and 2 cans of Sweet Sue or whatever local kind you have there canned chicken breast. Simmer for about an hour. Eat it VERY hot and you will sweat out your cold. Of course take an Ibuprofen or two and drink plenty of fluids. This works for me. I hope it helps you.

[corarose]

8. Nyquill

After you wake up in a week or two your cold is gone.

[toddzilla]

11. well, i'm losing weight..

so it will be awhile before i'm "hot" again.. :silly:

but i'd have to go with nyquill... it rocks.

[corarose]

13. Thanks

I forgot how to spell it.

It does have tons of sugar in it but one shot and your out for days.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Vitamin C, plenty of fluids and plenty of sleep

Avoid dairy products for the duration because they're mucus-producing... Feel better soon!:-)

[politicat]

14. Totally depends on the cold....

Sorry.

Coughs:

Dry (non-productive) versus Wet (productive)

If you have a dry cough, you need to take a cough suppressant when you sleep and when you are around others. If you have a productive cough, do not take suppressants - take an expectorant and drink a lot of fluids. Expectorants thin the mucus, making it easier to get out of your body (which is what you want.) But combining the two medications - expectorant and suppressant - makes them work at cross purposes, and keeps you from getting well. Don't take an expectorant if you have a dry cough - then you're just over medicating unnecessarily.

Fever:

If you have one, stay warm, even if you end up sweating and feeling really overheated. If you keep your core temp up, that helps your body burn off the invaders. If you don't have a fever, still keep warm, wear sweaters and long sleeves so that you're not over taxing your system.

Sleep:

Whenever, as much as you can. Cancel everything that's not critical and rest. Nap on the couch in the evenings if you have to be semi-functional. Curl up under blankets and rest, rest, rest. If your can't sleep thanks to coughing, fever, or something else, try a mild sedative like Tylenol PM or, as someone mentioned above, a hot toddy.

Liquids:
This I can't emphasize enough. Drink all the time. Water, juice, real broth, herbal tea, hot lemonade. Hot fluids won't cure you but they will make you feel better temporarily. Caffeine is up to you, but I'd probably give it a pass with one exception. I find that when I'm nauseous and can't keep anything down that I can drink plain Coca-cola over crushed ice if I drink very slowly. I try to avoid alcohol except in toddies - one shot of hot rum, 1 cup of hot tea and 2 teaspoons of sugar; 1 cup of hot water, 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 shot of rum, vodka or whiskey; either one just before bed, wrapped up warm.

Food:
If your tummy's not being part of the happy family, then BRAT is your best bet - Bananas, White Rice, Applesauce, and White, Dry Toast. Eat ve-rrrr-y slowly and don't feel bad about throwing out half a banana or a piece of toast or half of your rice. Acids will probably make your stomach feel worse so this is not the time for tomato juice or oranges. Keep drinking and keep getting things down because dry heaves are far worse than not-dry heaves.

Otherwise, try to eat high protein, low fat foods, complex carbs and gentle vegetables. My mother made us meat soups with whole wheat noodles and frozen vegetables and they were comforting. Now I find that wonton soup and egg drop soup are great when I'm sick; my sisters swear by chicken soup with rice and my husband is a huge fan of tortilla soup with extra hot sauce or real mulligtawny. (He's one of those people who cures colds with a shot-glass of Tabasco. YMMV!!!!!!) Eat little meals all day long and try to avoid the nuke and run meals. They're not good for you and now you need to baby yourself.

I'm what used to be called "delicate" - I have a damaged immune system. These tricks work for me and keep my colds to a 3-4 day thing. I have tried ecineachea, zinc, golden seal, megadoses of vitamin C and tracked my rates of recovery - they don't do a damn thing for me. But, once again, your mileage may vary.

Hope you feel better ASAP!!

[Myra]

15. Ok, I'm totally serious here

And it's...sort of personal, so anyone who
doesn't have a cold please read no further.
You're on the honor system. :)

I...squirt steroids up my nose.
...
See I get pollen allergies that make my
throat feel like it's on fire. So I have prescription
for Nasarel, which is a corticosteroid, i.e., an anti-
inflammatory. So one day I start to get a cold, sore
throat and all, and figure what the hell. Anti-inflammatory,
fights the symptoms common to pollen allergy and colds, so I
give it a try. Squirt squirt (two nostrils); it drips
down the back of my throat (gross, but hey that's our plumbing).
Hours later I'm symptom free.

I've done that every time I've started to get a cold ever since,
and it blows it away (snicker, snort) every time. It's the *magic
bullet*.

The other important ingredient an anti-histamine
to clear your nasal passages so that the squirt squirt
drip drip can take place.
I recommend Sudafed (or a generic) 'cause it works
great and doesn't cause drowsiness.

So that's it. There is a cure to the common cold. I'm amazed
corticosteroids aren't used more widely for colds. Yeah, I know;
they're a little controversial. And it pretty much killed my Olympic
dreams 'cause they'd detect the steroid in my system. :)
But hell, it prevents days/weeks of suffering. And many colds
turn into something much more serious.

Obviously you need an Rx though for Nasarel (or similar stuff).
I doubt you have it. If not, then regular old over the counter Sudafed will help a lot with the sniffly stuff. Just won't help
with the sore throat.

Oh! And a good old regular over the counter cough syrup
(ask your pharmacist for the best one) works amazingly well
on coughs and trashed throats, should it get to that stage.
All of the above really can reduce your suffering immensly.

Anyway, I hope this helped.
And for those non-cold sufferers who violated the honor system
and read this far...shame on you!

[ForrestGump]

16. Ying Chiao - Chinese patent medicine

Does actually seem to work on a lot of people, including me (I'm not only resistant to drugs of any kind but am always skeptical about any kind of medicine - the Placebo Effect cowers before me). The thing is that it works best when taken at first sign of trouble...hammer it with a bunch of Ying Chiao all at once.

The stuff's available in Chinese stores wherever there's a sizeable Chinese community but that's probbaly not going to do you much good in Joplin....it's available via the Web, too, but that still takes a while....BUT more and more health-food stores and the like carry it now, I've noticed, so you never know. Maybe your local herbs-and-granola dispensary will carry the stuff. Worth considering, anyway, for the future.

Feel better!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

17. the hat method always works for me

Get one hat and a bottle of brandy and get in a nice warm bed. Drink the brandy until you see two hats. Voila, you no longer give a shit about the cold.

[hlthe2b]

18. For sore throat: try those new chlorseptic strips....

they dissolve quickly, number the back of your throat and aren't as sickeningly sweet as cough drops...