mlinden84

I've had this nasty nasty cold for about 2 days now... and nothing I have tried seems to help me at all. I have literally gone through 3 boxes of kleenex in 2 days!! I've tried pills, syrups, sprays, you name it. Anyone have any ideas (medicine or home remedy) that I could try? I've got a full day of packing and cleaning to do today, but it is not going to get done if i feel like this all day. Plus i've got an 11 hour car ride with my 3 year old daughter tomorrow. yeehaw....
please help! if you have any ideas on something i can take to feel better please let me know!
I'll stop whining now!

Sabi

H'lo
I have absolute faith in the simple home remedies and hardly ever take pills/medicine for colds.
1 mug of boiling water with 1/2 or 3 tsp honey and a small piece of ginger, drink it as hot as possible as many times a day as you can. I promise you will feel better.
Better still, boil the water with the ginger and then add the honey, as that will let more ginger into the water.
Hope you feel better!

trish_norris

Have you tried thera-flu? That stuff works great you just have to remember to drink it hot and drink all as quickly as possible. They have a non drowsy formula and also one for nighttime.

angelfish220

I've used Sabi's remedy many times and it has worked. If your cold persists though, take zinc pills. Many times I've had colds before a chior concert, or even solo auditions, and I've taken zinc an hour before hand, then could sing perfectally for the event.

lilsoccakid

they sell a product near me called airborne, which is great. it dissolves in water, and helps reduce the length of your illness. another product is cold-ez, which comes as a gum or a hard candy. hope u feel better

sirdarksol

Nothing you can do will cure the cold. There is one thing that seems to shorten a cold (Zicam, which is a zinc nasal spray), and there are plenty of things that will treat various symptoms. Honey is a good treatment, and ginger is thought to have a million and one different things that it can treat. For that matter, hot water helps the body fight the infection in the irritated throat lining, which will ease the throatache in the long run. My mom takes gypsy cold cure, an herbal tea made out of peppermint (and probably a few other herbs, but it's the menthol in the peppermint that helps most).
Pills usually contain pseudoephedrine, which causes many peoples' hearts to race. Cough syrup can help, though, if you have a dry cough. I take a particular kind called Delsym. It doesn't have the alcohol in it, and it seems to work pretty well.

Edit: Be careful with airborne. There is enough vitamin C in it that if you, like most folks with a cold, drink a lot of OJ while you're sick, it can raise Vitamin C to harmful levels. This isn't as bad as an overdose on some other vitamins, but still something you're better off avoiding. In addition, the makers of airborne have paid a $23.3 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit because there is no proof the product works. This is not proof that it doesn't work, of course. Just throwing this out there.

King_Snuggles

excersize (jog run) anything to get you to sweat and drink lots of water.
sweat out a cold and starve a fever.
I just go running when i have a cold and by the time a have a good sweat going the cold is gone. though i don't have to go vary far to get a sweat in the Florida heat.

try it you'll be surprised.

mlinden84

Thanks for all the tips. And most of all, thanks for listening to my whining.
I've been drinking hot tea with lemon and honey, that seems to be helping (tips online say to stay as hydrated as possible). I just woke up from a 2 hour nap feeling amazing... until I stood up. Then the nose and eyes starting running again.
I guess I've lucked out to not have to cough part, just the runny eyes and the stuffy/runny/sore nose.
I tried using my daughters vaporplug thing, you put this little vicks vapor rub smelling disk in and plug it into the outlet. It smells good, but I'm not too sure how much it is helping

I'm a big fan of using home remedies instead of completely druging myself up if I can help it. But I did break down and use some of my perscription pseudoephedrine.

I'm off to the store for some more soft kleenex (my poor nose!) and some chicken soup.

Thanks for listening to my whining! No one else is home to listen to me this morning.

sirdarksol

Chicken soup! I apologize. There are two things that research shows can shorten a cold. Zinc is the first, chicken soup is the second. Something about the right proportion of amino acids and carbs in the soup.

Hope you get better.

(BTW, nurse and physiology major's opinion on "starve a fever" is, "Eat well when you have a fever. Your body needs the energy to maintain the fever and perform other actions that are fighting the infection.")

mlinden84

Wow it's amazing what 12 hours will do! I am already feeling a LOT better! Still have the runny nose, but my eyes have stopped watering. My poor nose is so sore... lol I've been putting my daughters "teeny faces" moisturizing stick all over. I'm just happy I'm feeling better, it would have been a miserable car ride tomorrow. I think the chicken soup and extra fluids really helped a lot, as did resting a lot.

Now I've got to get busy and finish packing, clean out the car, and get everything ready so we can leave at 6 am!

Sabi

Chicken soup, the best thing!

Peterpiper

Ok, garlic and vitamin C.
When your sick, you dont feel like eating... Rub some garlic on some toast.. and eat it.. drink as much OJ AS YOU CAN!.
I eat lots of garlic, eat tons of fruit.. never had the flu....

ninilie

I have been having sinus problems for for about 5 days now. It got worse on the weekend so i know how you felt. I go from stuffy to non-stop runny nose. I put off doing tank maintence til the last minute because im so tired. But the funny thing i found is that doing the w/c's made me feel better. I guess because its a routine. My son has just got over the worst of being sick and my daughter has the cough. At least i dont really have to work since i got a two day conference to attend.

Tavel

I've always found that liquor does the trick. Sip at some rum or port wine and you'll start feeling better. I'm not sure what there is to it, but it seems to work.

The alcohol seems to simultaneously clear the sinuses and soothe a sore throat, it also helps with coughing. While I'm guessing the alcohol provides an energy boost to help fight the infection (alcohol contains almost as much energy per gram as fat).

...it'll also help you sleep!

Sabi

You have my sympathy. I have sinus too and was suffering from it last weekend. I too had to put off w/c because as soon as i touch something cold- Ach-oo!

sirdarksol

There are actually cases where alcohol helps. It's mostly that the alcohol numbs the throat and drains the sinuses (make sure you're using the right kinds, though. Particularly harsh alcohols like cheap vodka can aggravate things more). I once went a week with the absolute worst sore throat ever. I took a shot of Baileys, and it was instant relief. It was temporary, of course, but enough to get to sleep.
Don't drink too much, though, as the alcohol does slow down the immune system's response.

ninilie

Feeling alittle better today thanks guys. Still dont feel good but at least no stuffy/runny nose. If my work hadnt paid for me to attend a two day seminar i would have stayed home. It was worth it to be at the seminar though because it was highly interesting and the ac was so high it was freezing apposed to 100 degrees at my house lol. I plan on taking some theraflu tonight since i did not sleep last night.

I did have a fish emergency this morning though that i couldnt deal with. I guess one of my cats had jumped onto my 10g divided tank and had messed it up to the point where i found my females swimming with my happy male juvies. Too much going on sometimes.

andy65

Go to a health food store and ask if they a product call "sambucal" or something similar to it. It's a syrup made from elderberrys.

We found this stuff when we all came down with the WORST cold we all have every had. The stuff works WONDERS. We make our own,as it is cheaper than buying it. We make it for during the flu season in the winter.