I woke up yesterday with a bad cold which of course did not stop me from doing anything i planned. Today is Sunday and since everything is crowded i decided to stay at home (and hopefully my cold will go away)

So when you do have a cold what do you do to get better?

I just stay at home with loads of cups of tea and soups. What about you?

I drink honey in hot water and loads of herbal tea.

Got a few more Vitamin C and boost my immunity with tea trea essential oil.


Actually I boost my immunity before I got a cold

I'm in the same boat - woke up with a sore throat and sniffles yesterday, although it's seems not to have developed into an absolute stinker this time. It's the fourth time this year I've had cold so I'm a little bit miffed at the moment.

I'm not really a tea/soup kind of person, but I do find a good stiff glass of whisky helps, if only for the fact that I enjoy it, and that it dulls the feeling of the cold.

Get well soon

Me too, with a bottle of Cognac & then when it's starting to take hold another bottle

Thanks you too

I dont like whisky but i do have a bottle of tequila here...

The rare time I've got a cold I used to stop to eat meat, cheese and drink milk.

Got more energy for the body to recover.....

• Viks inhaler
• Buttercup cough medicine
• Max strength lemsips
• Strepsils
• Vitamin tablets

Those usually get me through a cold with minimum fuss. I literally packed my suitcase full of medication this year... I went round Sainsburys and bought about 10 of everything that usually costs a fortune in CH like Ibuprofen, various creams etc etc so I hope to be prepared this winter.

How about the girl's Whiskey, you know that Irish Cream. That's quite nice

Unfortunately we are not big drinkers so our alcohol supply is limited. But if i find any i will give it a shot thanks

Paracetamol to relieve fever and hot liquids. Vix to help you sleep.

Sudafed type stuff and cough mixture (no need for real drugs: Tixylix) if you need it.

With these, a cold will last 7 days. Without, a week. All you can do is relieve symptoms.

Or none of the above and drink alcohol, if you're a jakey.

Are you chilled? Sneezing? Coughing? Lethargic? Feverish? Head aching?

Chilled-check your temperature and then take ibuprofen or acetomeniphen if it's a fever (Tylenol type stuff)

Fever-same advice as above. Oh, also might want to take a cool bath or shower if it's relatively high.

Sneezing-might also be a dust allergy (which can come up this time of year). Air out your house briefly to get some fresh air if you think this is a possibility.

Coughing-Wet cough-unfortunately, you should let this be, unless it's keeping you up at night. Then take a decongestant. But if it doesn't get better in like 5 days, go to a doctor, because it can be serious (like when I recently had bronchitis and sinusitis)

Dry cough-something with dextromethoriphan will help that. Avoid if you are driving though, because you can get slightly high and drowsy off of it.

Head aching-if you poke around your eyes where your sinuses are and it hurts (and you might have been coughing a lot), you might have sinusits. As a regular sufferer of this, it sucks. If the headache suddenly hits you after moving or bending over, this is a pretty classic symptom of sinusitis. Take nasal decongestants, maybe do a nasal passage rinse (ugh). What also helps is using a nasal spray with Oxymetazoline twice a day. This is known as Afrin in the US, but no idea what it might be called here.

As always, I'm not a doctor, just have had a lot of colds. If symptoms get worse, go to a doctor.

It is just flipping weather fluctuation from frost to cold and vice versa, when germs are happy running round in the moist air. Last week I went skiing in -15deg and I was fine the whole week after until another session two days ago in +2deg, then I had a cold. I tried anything from whiskey to herbal infusion warm tea but the best remedy is inhalation done few times a day. I higly recommend NasoBol Inhalo which puts me back on my feet very quickly. If I have a soar throat, I will use Lemosan 10-20 drops diluted in luke warm water and gargle for 10-15 min. Now I'm trying to recover, another weekend spent at home, before I can head for mountains again tomorrow or on Tuesday. Speedy recovery.

For me it usually was Vicks Nyquil / Dayquil series... nyquil has something "extra" to help with sleep... Thankfully I've not been sick here (*knock wood*) so haven't had to go searching. Oh! M-i-l keeps us supplied with NeoCitran (packaging looks different here) and we tend to take it at the first sign of anything... so far it's done pretty well apparently.

Also, spicy food helps to drain out my head. Since I didn't feel much up to cooking, usually it was a can of chicken soup with a good tablespoon of salsa and maybe a dash of tobasco sauce. If you're more in the mood for cooking... I often make a variation of Kimchi Jjigae using chicken as the protein source.

Chest and throat are often problems for me, cold or not so I try to avoid milk (milk can / does make more mucus in your throat) products and have various sources of menthol / mint available.

The Air Waves gum is great for helping me breathe better but there are also some fancy things like menthol tablets you put in the shower so that you have mentholated steam in there or menthol mini vaporizers to plug directly into the outlet. I am not sure where you can get the fancy things here but they do carry a few different types of menthol gum at the stores here.


Other than those things above, get plenty of rest!

Oh, one thing I love here compared to back home is the tissues... I know they don't feel as soft but those 4-ply local brand tissues are so much better than flimsy old "soft" Kleenex as you don't need to use as many so your nose doesn't get so raw.

Garlic, garlic and more garlic.

Seriously, down the stuff like crazy. It has great anti-viral properties and will work on killing the virus from the source and thereby eradicating the symptoms (rather than conventional medicine which just dulls symptoms but prolongs the actual illness).

When the swine flu went around, my hubby came down with either it or another flu bug...on the first day, I had him eat four garlic cloves raw (YUCK) and he went from being a total walking zombie (I mean, let's be honest, he actually let me convince him to eat four cloves of raw garlic!) to being up and about the next day. He still had cold symptoms but it was nothing even close to just 8 hours prior.

And yeah, the alcohol thing is always a good trick, too! Surprising what that can kill off!

Good luck!

"ibuprofen" is not acetomeniphen/"Tylenol"/paracetamol and is not for colds.

Of course, you're not a doctor but at least try to be accurate

Good to see the grand tradition of clinical trials is still alive and well.

On my pack of ibuprofen it says "treats the symptoms of cold and 'flu". And ibuprofen is an anti-pyretic. And it works fine, I can tell you. Take with food though.

Taken from here http://www.advance-health.com/garlic.html

Huh. Very interesting!

With that in mind, here is a recipe that should do well:

Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Ah OK. I mainly use ibuprofen for hangovers...

Ah, you beat me to it. Here's a recipe from a Finnish singer for a sinus/throat cold. Fins know what to do with colds, and professional singers have got their mucus membranes down to a science. This recipe takes a bit of guts to try but I can guarantee the results. You will definitely feel better the next morning. It is a health bomb, it just kills everything in your throat.

Garlic Tea
An entire head of garlic, or as much as you can stand, sliced into slivers
Crushed ginger
Pour boiling water over it, let it steep a bit (not too much! This stuff is strong!)
Add honey to flavor
Down the hatch.
Said Finn then proceeded to eat the garlic at the end with a spoon, but I could never bring myself to do that.

I've tried this myself a number of times and never failed to be reeking of garlic, yet ambulatory and fully-functional, the next morning.