Remedies against a cold

luckykitty

luckykitty

Joined
May 14, 2009
Messages
1,410
Actually it is only semi off topic, it can happen to you at home or outside.

One day you are around a lot of people, and a good few of them are sneezing.
Your immune system can handle it - so you think. Then you get into a rain shower unexpectedly, and are soaking wet before you could even get the poncho out of your pack. A day later you feel it coming, your throat is sore, your head begins to feel as though it is being filled with cotton wool ...
high time to act - what do you do?

If home the day I got wet, I'd:
prepare a hot bath, pour one or two bottles of beer in the tub, heat another beer. Bathe and drink the hot beer. Sweat it out during the night. (I usually wrap in a sheet then and have several other sheets handy, so I can change quickly, I don't want to stay wet ...

I drink lots of tea ...
in the evening: elder flower or basswood flower - both make you sweat
over the day: rose hip, sea buckthorn (anything with high vitamin c).
And I eat chicken soup ...

On a trip, I'd find myself a willow and make a tree out of the bark or roots, and then make my way home carefully. Carefully cause it will thin the blood. But it works like aspirine, so I should be able to make it at least somewhere I can get help (well in western europe anyway, in other regions of the world that is somewhat different)

So what do you do?
 
As far as I can determine, we can treat the symptoms of a cold but not shorten its duration. I take cough/throat medicine and sleep as much as possible.

Does being wet really cause colds?
 
I usually sleep, drink a lot of water/gatorade, eat soup (if I can), and take whatever cold remedy that fits my symptoms. Of course some of that changes depending on what I have, recently I got hit by the "welcome back to college" seasonal flu and was extremely nauseous and couldn't even keep water down. So in that case I just slept a lot til I got better.

If I feel a cold coming I use this stuff and it usually kicks it out of my system. Emergen-C is also pretty good.
 
My dad is really into eating raw garlic when he gets sick with anything. Seems to work alright for colds. Otherwise, I just take medicine. Yeah, pretty mundane.
 
Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup or homemade starting out with chicken in the crockpot...either way, just a smidge of Cayenne Pepper and a lot of Black Pepper. When you get to the broth, it should look like the broth has a bad case of fleas. :D

Lots of Orange Juice, 500 Mg Tablet of Vitamin C and a good multivitamin.

This is something you might want to avoid with H1N1, which is a variant of the original Spanish Flu (they're not telling you this, are they?) because your immune system's overreaction to H1N1 is what kills a lot of people.
 
Crank up the heat in your room to around 80F and soak it up. Those oil filled radiator type electric heaters work well for that.
 
You cannot get a cold from being cold... It is a virus.

Since it is a virus, you cannot do anything but attack the symptoms.

Sudafed is good. Vitamins cannot hurt.
 
Grump said:
Does being wet really cause colds?
Click to expand...

Said like that no, its an old wives tale. Rapid body temperature fluctuations can lead to a cold or worse though.

I use ginger tea. get some ginger root, slice it nice and thin maybe a good 1.5 square inches. boil until nice and spicy, sooth it out with a teas of molasses and a teas honey.
 
bobnery said:
Zicam
Click to expand...

The FDA pulled Zicam because they had a certain percentage of people losing their sense of smell. Morons probably abusing it. It never worked for me, however. But medications are like that, they work well for one person and not very well for another. Naproxen does nothing for me, Ibuprofen does, and so it goes.
 
Grump said:
Does being wet really cause colds?
Click to expand...

no but if you ask my Grandmother/ mother in law my kids are gonna get sick everytime its chilly and they dont' wear socks :jerkit:.

if you really want to charge through your syptoms when you first feel sick go get a massage. it will bring on your symptoms quickly and you'll get it over w/ faster.
 
Tripton said:
You cannot get a cold from being cold... It is a virus.

Since it is a virus, you cannot do anything but attack the symptoms.

Sudafed is good. Vitamins cannot hurt.
Click to expand...

I am NOT a doctor but I think that the theory is that the rapid chilling of the body slightly lowers the natural immune systems ability to fight off the virus. Also, in extreme cases of hypothermia I believe that there is a risk of developing pneumonia which can certainly put you in a world of hurt without some good meds.
 
Tripton said:
You cannot get a cold from being cold... It is a virus.
Click to expand...
Hence the scenario with other people having a cold in a crowd.
It just so happens that your immune system could just do away with it without you ever noticing it, or due to other influences your immune system has a weak spot. Hypothermia can be such an influence.

It never is cold alone.
 
The cold weakens your immune system which then allows you to catch a cold via the rhinovirus.

But if I feel one coming on I usually make some homemade chicken noodle soup with garlic, carrots, and celery. Then I pour on the pepper and drink a glass of OJ and I am usually golden.
 
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