Fighting winter sickness

[treacheroustexan]

I have tried all the medication on the shelf this morning, woke up sneezing, runny nose, the whole nine yards. I made a hot toddy with 3 oz fireball, 4 oz water, some lemon juice and a few squirts of honey and I feel great. Though it may wear off soon so any tips are greatly appreciated.

 

[JonM]

Rest, rest, and more rest. Go to bed early and sleep well. That always seems to speed recovery along for me, at least.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Rest, rest, and more rest. Go to bed early and sleep well. That always seems to speed recovery along for me, at least.

Can I get you to tell that to the lady so I don't have to do laundry today?

 

[JayDubWill]

A steady supply of Mucinex seems to keep my colds bearable until I get better. Eats lots of citrus, kiwi, bananas, and plenty of water.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

You have to hammer it and don't let up until it's gone.

1500mg vitamin C, 4x /day
Cold-eeze style Zinc lozenges 8x /day

Stay hydrated. Lots of water.
Avoid dairy products ... they have the tendency to thicken mucus secretions.

Re-contamination and re-infection is huge ...
Make four complete changes of your bedsheets ... stuff each set into one of the pillow cases. Use these for fast and easy bed changes.
Completely change your bed linens every other day. If you want to re-use the blankets without laundering them and just change the sheets/pillowcases, put the blankets in the clothes dryer on high for an hour.

At time of decontamination, spray house with Lysol spray ... door knobs, all keyboards and clickers, phones, etc ... sinks ... all common surfaces, mattress pads, as many contact surfaces as you can imagine might harbor the virus.

ONLY use disposable tissues, kleenex, bathroom tissue, papertowels, whathaveyou, to blow your nose. Don't re-use any sort of "handkerchief" cloth etc.

Decontaminate your toothbrush after use ... either Listerine type mouthwash or Hydrogen Peroxide. Also use either or both as a regular mouth-rinse/gargle a couple times a day. (for gargling, the hydrogen peroxide is used 1:1 with water ... roughly tablespoon peroxide and tablespoon water etc)

fwiw, that regimen of Vitamin C and the lozenge style zinc tablets *really* works incredibly well if you hammer it at the first sign of illness.

Three weeks ago I cut a (rhinovirus) cold, that started as a vicious sore throat down to 3 active days with the above actions. That's probably less than half the normal active duration for me.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Go to the pharmacy and get Sudafed. Not the stuff on the shelf; you have to get this from behind the counter. It has to be the real stuff made with pseudoephedrine... They'll make you show ID, as there are federal limits on how much you can purchase because the meth makers ruined it for us.

But it actually works, unlike the worthless stuff on the shelf.

BTW last time I got sick I bought the store-brand from Walgreen's rather than Sudafed itself. I saved some money but it still has the real pseudoephedrine in it...

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Take a vitamin C tablet & a vitamin D tablet together once a day. Drink plenty of fluids like water, juice or tea. Antihystamines can help, but they tend to over-dry your nasal passages & can even dry out your lips to the point of them cracking & bleeding. Benadryl or a store brand with diphenhydramine HCI 25mg will work, it's up to you if you want to risk the side effects I mentioned above. Mucinex will work too, but there are other side effects in addition to the drying; some you might notice during sex. Instead, try a pump-mist nasal spray that contains oxymetazoline HCI 0.05%. The 12 hr pump mist is the one you want, NOT the squeezy bottle. It gives a pre-measured dose with each pump. Put a dose or 2 up each nostril & snuff it up good. In a few minutes, you should feel your nose starting to clear. I use this stuff a lot & it works wonders for me, with no bad side effects.
Hope you get to feeling better.
Regards, GF.

 

[Homercidal]

My course of action depends on the symptoms, but generally Pseudoephederine and mucinex for congestion, allergy pills for sneezing runny nose, vitamins for helping knock it down quicker.

I tend to get sinus and throat infections, so I maintain the decongestants for a while after a cold.

Along with the meds get lots of rest, drink lots of fluids. Avoid alcohol as it can irritate and inflame certain tissues that are probably already inflamed.

 

[Tutsbrew]

Re-contamination and re-infection is huge ...
Make four complete changes of your bedsheets ... stuff each set into one of the pillow cases. Use these for fast and easy bed changes.
Completely change your bed linens every other day. If you want to re-use the blankets without laundering them and just change the sheets/pillowcases, put the blankets in the clothes dryer on high for an hour.

Actually, and with all due respect, re-infection WITH ILLNESS is extremely remote. Your immune system will have defeated the intruding virus and developed antibodies that will now be able to fight off that bug. ...Ever wonder why flu vaccines work against the targeted virus? The ONLY way you will suffer the illness from that same bug is if it mutates, and that would take several/many host's over time. You may well be "re-infected" with that very same bug but your now developed antibodies (against that invader) will prevent illness.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Actually, and with all due respect, re-infection WITH ILLNESS is extremely remote. Your immune system will have defeated the intruding virus and developed antibodies that will now be able to fight off that bug. ...Ever wonder why flu vaccines work against the targeted virus? The ONLY way you will suffer the illness from that same bug is if it mutates, and that would take several/many host's over time. You may well be "re-infected" with that very same bug but your now developed antibodies (against that invader) will prevent illness.

"Actually, and with all due respect" ... with regard to your suggestion that my post about early stage treatment was wrong ... you are *completely incorrect*.

You may check your facts before posting by googling "rhinovirus" plus "reinfection" if you like.

Regarding my previous statement ... quoting from Virology-Online in the piece "Pathogenesis of Rhinoviruses Infection" ...
"Following infection, a specific humoral response is found in both serum and nasal secretions. Serum-neutralizing antibodies do not appear until 14 days after infection and thus recovery is probably not mediated by antibodies."

Recovery from a Rhinovirus infection is due to a Cell-Mediated Response. Not antibodies.

You mention flu shots as if to somehow buttress your inaccurate contention.
OK ... regarding flu shots; Let me ask you ... when you get a flu shot, how long does the health care professional tell you it will take for you to develop antibodies to help protect against influenza??
Same period. Approximately two weeks. IS this not exactly what they tell you?

And so ... NO, antibodies are not preventing re-infection ... and YES this is why periodic disinfection of surfaces and bedding is crucial.

Nearly constant reinfection is rampant and serves to constantly add to the viral load and slow the bodies ability to overcome the infection.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, you either did not carefully read the OP's original post in which he made *no* suggestion whatsoever that he has been sick for any number of weeks, and in fact would seem to suggest his cold has started more recently (to quote: "woke up sneezing, runny nose") ... and/or you did not carefully read my reply where my consequent answer was specific to treatment during an initial-stage time period.

 

[Tutsbrew]

"Actually, and with all due respect" ... with regard to your suggestion that my post about early stage treatment was wrong ... you are *completely incorrect*.

You may check your facts before posting by googling "rhinovirus" plus "reinfection" if you like.

Regarding my previous statement ... quoting from Virology-Online in the piece "Pathogenesis of Rhinoviruses Infection" ...
"Following infection, a specific humoral response is found in both serum and nasal secretions. Serum-neutralizing antibodies do not appear until 14 days after infection and thus recovery is probably not mediated by antibodies."

Recovery from a Rhinovirus infection is due to a Cell-Mediated Response. Not antibodies.

You mention flu shots as if to somehow buttress your inaccurate contention.
OK ... regarding flu shots; Let me ask you ... when you get a flu shot, how long does the health care professional tell you it will take for you to develop antibodies to help protect against influenza??
Same period. Approximately two weeks. IS this not exactly what they tell you?

And so ... NO, antibodies are not preventing re-infection ... and YES this is why periodic disinfection of surfaces and bedding is crucial.

Nearly constant reinfection is rampant and serves to constantly add to the viral load and slow the bodies ability to overcome the infection.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, you either did not carefully read the OP's original post in which he made *no* suggestion whatsoever that he has been sick for any number of weeks, and in fact would seem to suggest his cold has started more recently (to quote: "woke up sneezing, runny nose") ... and/or you did not carefully read my reply where my consequent answer was specific to treatment during an initial-stage time period.

Wow, I hit a nerve! So after two weeks you'll not have illness due to that same organism. Cool.
Cheers!

 

[FloppyKnockers]

You have to hammer it and don't let up until it's gone.

1500mg vitamin C, 4x /day
Cold-eeze style Zinc lozenges 8x /day

Stay hydrated. Lots of water.
Avoid dairy products ... they have the tendency to thicken mucus secretions.

Re-contamination and re-infection is huge ...
Make four complete changes of your bedsheets ... stuff each set into one of the pillow cases. Use these for fast and easy bed changes.
Completely change your bed linens every other day. If you want to re-use the blankets without laundering them and just change the sheets/pillowcases, put the blankets in the clothes dryer on high for an hour.

At time of decontamination, spray house with Lysol spray ... door knobs, all keyboards and clickers, phones, etc ... sinks ... all common surfaces, mattress pads, as many contact surfaces as you can imagine might harbor the virus.

ONLY use disposable tissues, kleenex, bathroom tissue, papertowels, whathaveyou, to blow your nose. Don't re-use any sort of "handkerchief" cloth etc.

Decontaminate your toothbrush after use ... either Listerine type mouthwash or Hydrogen Peroxide. Also use either or both as a regular mouth-rinse/gargle a couple times a day. (for gargling, the hydrogen peroxide is used 1:1 with water ... roughly tablespoon peroxide and tablespoon water etc)

fwiw, that regimen of Vitamin C and the lozenge style zinc tablets *really* works incredibly well if you hammer it at the first sign of illness.

Three weeks ago I cut a (rhinovirus) cold, that started as a vicious sore throat down to 3 active days with the above actions. That's probably less than half the normal active duration for me.

^^^This^^^

But, I would up the vitamin C to your threshold. Start at 1500 mg then increase the dose 500 mg every dose until you poo-pee, then take it back 500 mg and now you know your threshold.

 

[Tutsbrew]

OMG guys, where talking about a cold here!

I learned something tho, that you can be reinfected with the same cold virus up to 14+ days after initial exposure. Thank you.

Having said that, I have never had what we'd think of as a 10 plus day cold, or re-infection. Nobody in my family has. Nor that I know of at church or at work. None of my friends either. No, I'm not a 20-something, I've been on this orb over 5 decades and I've seen some peeps over the years with a cold. Probably a good number of the 99 or so known cold viruses have been involved. Including myself, family, friends, coworkers, church family, etc, I've likely known of hundreds of courses of the rhino-virus malady, er, cold. All of them less than a week. No doubt there has been immediate reinfections our there but I've never known of any. Guess I'm lucky, one less thing to be paranoid about.

Our colds seem to last 4 or 5 days, and we can get it down to 3 using zinc in various delivery methods (acetate, gluconate...), high doses of vitamin C with its metabolites, higher amounts of trace minerals than we use on a daily basis, etc)

If I or a member of my family were immunologically challenged, suffering from a chronic pulmonary condition, were elderly, etc, then immediate reinfection would be a concern to me. I hope I'm not prying, but may I ask if you might be suffering from a malady as such and therefore unusually concerned about performing such activitis? If so, I do wish you the best in your fight. If not, that's a good thing!

Again, thank you for letting me in on the idea of immediate reinfection with the same cold virus that can happen up to about 14 days or so.

Cheers!

 

[butterpants]

Ethyl Alcohol supresses your immune system.

Avoid it..... unless you're a grunt and like 20something. Then get hammered on whiskey the night before and you'll be money come ruck time.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Wow, I hit a nerve! So after two weeks you'll not have illness due to that same organism. Cool.
Cheers!

Nope, not a nerve.

That's one of the downsides of written communication, it is hard to quite judge, or for that matter get across, the tenor that something was written in.

I was just reinforcing my earlier suggestions.
I find the topic more significant than say, lawn care or somesuch ... particularly while cold & flu season is rampant, and so I'm slightly more apt to try and maintain the integrity of my original recommendation having taken the time to write it in the first place.

Your comment did provide the opportunity to underscore the worthwhile point about disinfecting. Something often overlooked. So it's all good.

But, as fascinating as my sermon was, it's nothing compared to the electricity generated when I start talking about life insurance and life insurance premiums.
I'd ought to save that for another thread though.

Regards,
Jacob-the-Brief

 

[Hello]

Well **** sure got real up in here.

For me it is rest. Usually sickness follows a long period of lack of rest and me pushing myself far beyond my limits. I'll take the normal vitamin C and such, but generally, it's a giant shot of wheat grass, a warm bath with a cup of tea, Nyquil and a full night's sleep. If I wake up feeling off still, I'll take Nyquil again and sleep more. I usually wake up right as rain.

The whole wheat grass thing may be just in my head, but I went to the doctor after getting sick once because my throat was on fire and he said I had strep. I went home, did everything above and woke up feeling just about normal the next day.

Get well, man.

 

[treacheroustexan]

Ethyl Alcohol supresses your immune system.

Avoid it..... unless you're a grunt and like 20something. Then get hammered on whiskey the night before and you'll be money come ruck time.

22 and fireball got me through it every night.. i feel better now! Going to keep drinking the fireball though just to be safe..

 

[JonM]

Man, when I was 22, I would have a cold and stay out all night in a smoky bar, drink and smoke, and still get over a cold lickety-split. I miss those days.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

I've noticed that oddly, if I've had inflammation from an infection including things such as from a cut etc or something more systemic, if I get hammered, the infection is less the next day.
Kinda like DIY chemo or something.
Last year I thought I'd noticed the same effect with a cold I had. I guess the toxicity of blood alcohol would make sense in this regard. Uncertain if it was cause and effect with that cold though.
While it's an entertaining treatment for the common cold ... I'm not sure it can be recommended.
Though come to think of it, I do recall John Wayne using whiskey for all sorts of "medicinal" purposes.
He may have been on to something.

 

[butterpants]

John Wayne died at 72 from stomach cancer.