Favorite cold remedies

[tygab]

I have had several colds this year so obviously whatever I am doing isn't working . I am still sporadically coughing from my last one which started around labor day and has gone til now (though the major symptoms were winding down by 1.5 wks ago). Most have been after flying somewhere.



That said, I have tried Airborne & related knockoffs, tea, chicken soup, throat drops... pretty much all the standard options. Once I have a cold or noticeable imminent symptoms, there isn't much I can do. So preventing them seems to be the key. I think I need to try the Airborne before flying which is really how it's supposed to be used, and like a day or two before even.

If anyone else has suggestions on how to prevent them... I'm eager to hear them.

[RoadRaven]

Eat garlic often, and "overdose" on Vitimin C (tablets, fizz-bomb drinks and madarins, oranges and tangelos)...

[Kano]

Well, now, we're remedying colds, not preventing 'em -- that's a whole different issue, lots harder to deal with in my opinion!

When I feel one coming on, I'll wear a hooded sweatshirt to bed, hood on, and pile on the blankets. I even wrap my head. Oh -- and I sleep in my recliner, not laying down. All the stuff follows gravity instead of settling into my sinuses and such that way...

I figure that the keeping myself warm thing works a little like a fever. Our bodies get fevers because germs don't like a hot environment. They like our normal body temperature, so a fever, uncomfortable as it is, is designed to make us inhospitable. So, I sort of try to induce that inhospitable state!

Besides that, lots of liquid, extra vitamin C, and if it gets that far, decongestants to keep me breathing!

Karen in Boise

[KnottedYet]

Garlic and zinc I've heard help prevent viral replication. Zinc especially is s'posed to help the first 2 or 3 days of a cold. (The sulpher compounds in garlic are supposedly antibiotic, too. Garlic for everyone!) So you'll catch the little boogers but the garlic and zinc will help to slow them down and your immune system does the rest.

My first sign of a cold is tonsil grumpiness. That's when I start on the zinc. A couple days later the actual cold begins and I quit the zinc. I figure by then it's up to my immune system and I do what I can to support the immune system and treat my symptoms.

And I still want to believe that there are a limited number of cold viruses out there, and after you've had them all you won't catch anymore. Allow me to live in my happy fantasy world...