I woke up with a monster cold a couple of days ago — coughing, sneezing, stuffiness, achy head, sore throat, etc. I sound like the Cookie Monster and feel like malicious, scaly, mohawked gremlins rolled a dumpster over me while I was sleeping. Which isn’t possible because who the fuck can sleep while horking up massive lung loogies?
I’m taking NyQuil and DayQuil by turns, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. Once I drag myself to the end of this workday, I’m making my special hot sausage, red pepper, potato and kale soup, but I don’t think even that will make me feel better.
Is anyone else sick? Please feel free to complain about it in comments. Got any home remedies? Share! Or feel free to discuss whatever.
Keith G
Tortilla soup with the spice level turned up.
srv
Good news, my doc says I don’t have pneumonia.
Pogonip
It’s probably time to see a doctor if you are coughing up stuff.
schrodinger's cat
Hot fluids help me; Ginger tea, milk with turmeric and pepper, chicken soup.
debg
My doctor recommends a kids’ cough syrup called Delsym, and that stuff is the BOMB. Works for 12 hours.
JPL
Betty.. I woke up with a monster cold
Wahoo you got some sleep. There is something going around in GA too. If it doesn’t clear up soon, visit your doctor.
PhoenixRising
Warm drinks with plenty of America’s native cold remedy, bourbon.
As my dad used to say, What’s in this glass will either cure you or kill you (honey, lemon, boiling water & Kentucky shine).
You don’t have to gulp it wearing one of these…
http://www.kentuckyforkentucky.com/collections/all/products/more-bourbon-than-people-tank-top
But it helps.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I got pneumonia from this – flu thing, I guess, that’s making the rounds. My wife didn’t but there’s still time, she’s still out there overworking herself. I was out of work for an entire week and finally have started feeling better at the two week mark. I think you can look forward to having this for at least a couple of weeks. Very lung-intensive, so keep a sharp eye out. You do not want pneumonia, and even though I’m a bit young I’m going to get the Pneumovax vaccine. Pneumonia is not to be fucked around with,
ETA: antibiotics were an absolute necessity. If you get this and start getting yellow shit coming out of your lungs, get your ass to a doctor. Ceftin worked well on me.
bbleh
On the non-drug side, drink a lot of water: you lost most of your water by exhalation rather than by other means, and if you need to you lose more, you lose more through your lungs, and that helps keep the cough “loose.” For the same reason, use a vaporizer at night, and spend 15 mins with it twice during the day if you can.
rk
Honey lemon in warm water helps a cough. 1tsp honey, juice from a 1/4 of a lemon added to around 1/4 cup of lukewarm water. Sip slowly and take 3-4 times a day. Works wonders for a cough. If you have a dry hacking cough it loosens things up.
SiubhanDuinne
I had that, or something similar, a couple of weeks ago but I thought it was all the pollen, to which I seem to have developed a fine old sensitivity in the past couple of years. What eventually did the trick was Claritin by day, NyQuil by night, and the hot spicy remedies mentioned by other commenters. And sleep when I could get it.
Shinobi
I use cold-ease as soon as I start feeling even slightly sick. It makes you rmouth feel like sandpaper, but the zinc is really supposed to help. And then I will mainline those halls vitamin c drops throughout the day. (I think this mostly just keeps my blood sugar high, but, it helps.)
I wont take any kind of ‘quil, it always makes me feel about 1000 times worse when it fades away. Sometimes I will take Contact. But both nyquil and dayquil make my brain feel like cotton balls.
Eljai
Garlic. You can mix it with the bourbon if you want.
jeffreyw
@srv: Not good news, alas. They can cure pneumonia.
Kristin
I have started taking a decongestant (the real stuff like Sudafed, not phenylephrine), both for sinus headaches and colds. It used to make me feel awful — shaky, etc. — but my body seems to have gotten used to it, and it’s the only thing that really helps me dry out when I have a cold. My doctor recommends an expectorant (such as Mucinex), because he says it’s good to get all the gunk out, but that never seems to help me much. The only other thing that helps me is rest, which is tough for those of us with responsible jobs.
ETA: Nyquil keeps me up all night. It’s so weird.
scav
@PhoenixRising: I had something remarkably identical poured down my throat when in Bordeaux — a non-Kentucky product being the minor difference. So we have achieved enhanced geographic spread folk-remedy. Other contenders in the bin are the virtues of chicken soup and the worm-based danger of eating raw cookie dough.
SiubhanDuinne
Since it’s an open thread, has anybody seen Ted Cruz’ latest exercise in sensitivity and compassion?
I don’t know whether the rug is real or fake, and don’t much care. It’s a horrible, perverse image that I find completely abhorrent.
Belafon
Just go to the doctor. You’ve obviously crossed that line into YUCK.
Bobby Thomson
@SiubhanDuinne:
This is ridiculous. Being a lawyer doesn’t magically give someone knowledge of all laws. People specialize.
Or it’s one illegally made. One thing that all lawyers know is that people do break the law.
aimai
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah–treatment should vary a lot depending on the color of the gunk you are coughing up, Betty.
Symptomatically and antiseptically speaking I make and drink massive quantities of ginger tea:
Smash or grate chunks of ginger into water, boil it for a while, add a teabag and grated black pepper, tons of lemon juice and then tons of honey. This hydrates you (keeps the fluids moving), the honey coats your throat, and the ginger and black or red pepper is an antiseptic.
I also recommend (and make) a supergarliky and spicey thai style chicken soup with lime and jalapeño and cilantro. With enough garlic and jalapeno I usually find I’m better in no time.
Stranded Northerner
I would go see your doctor or go to a “minute clinic” if you can’t get in with them this afternoon. In my area (South Florida) I know Walgreens, Target, and CVS has them. They’re walk-in, staffed by nurses that can write prescriptions for certain conditions (such as your cold), and all the ones I have visited take insurance.
How long has the cold lasted? Does it feel like it’s settling into the top of your lungs? You could have acute bronchitis, which means some opportunistic bacterial infection has slipped in behind the virus. I know from personal experience that those infections won’t go away for weeks– possibly a month or two– without antibiotics.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Those things start off looking tacky. Also too, the outside of a dead tiger doesn’t make a durable rug. An expensive taxidermy head lying on the floor gets banged up like anything else lying on the floor; there will be hair loss; and the whole thing starts to look shabby sooner than you might expect. If that tiger skin’s real, it’s expensive, of dubious legality, and invites disgust rather than admiration. It suits Ted Cruz to a tee. If it’s phony, it suits him even better
Kay (not the front-pager)
Home remedy: 3-4 slices of ginger the thickness of a dime, steeped in a cupful of tea-temperature water (boiling? almost boiling?) for 5 minutes. Add a spoonful of honey and a healthy shot of brandy and sip slowly, inhaling the fumes.
Or just a shot of brandy. That’s good too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bobby Thomson: Of course his office is now saying it was all just a big joke.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Brilliant.
Llelldorin
If this is the cold that was making the rounds in the Bay Area a couple of months ago–nothing works, at all. Worst cold I’ve had in the last decade that wasn’t obviously a flu. All the stuff that I usually do–*Quil, peppery chicken soups, teas, hot baths, you name it–were like taking on a tank with a straw and wadded up paper. Best I could figure out to do was lay in a huge supply of water and stay in bed.
Bob In Portland
My girlfriend and I got a nasty sinus thing (pretty sure it was a virus) that lasted for over a month. We got it from watching our friend’s toddler for a morning. The little ones are really bug magnets. It really screwed around with our ears. Never had anything like that in all my years. A netty pot helped get a lot of the gunk out. During massive stretches of gunk production sudafeds helped. And ibu for the pain.
Otherwise, I would go into the den and turn on the TV and put on reruns of “48 Hours” and let the crime wash over me while I dozed. I’d go to sleep in the middle of a bad drug deal and wake up in a triple homicide at someone’s party.
The thing about the virus we had was that after all the other symptoms were gone I’d get sharp pains in my ear regions. Really fucked up. Hope your sickness is shorter and not so painful.
Violet
Mainline Vitamin C. Also, make sure your Vitamin D levels are high enough. I know you live in Florida, but it has been winter and you have been inside with ill family members. Low Vitamin D levels can make one more susceptible to colds and flu. Otherwise, just keep doing what you’re doing.
Has anyone heard of using hydrogen peroxide drops in your ears to ward off colds and flu? Ran across that the other day while looking for sinus issue remedies. My ear is totally stopped up from sinus problems. Decided to give it a try and weirdly it seems to be helping.
Mary G
I agree with everyone that said to go to the doctor if you are coughing up colored expectorant. My former MD was very anti-antibiotic for colds, but if I hacked up yellow or green stuff, he gave me an antibiotic right away. He used a different one for each color.
Otherwise, my caregiver bought me some Alka-Seltzer day and night cold pills (gel caps, not the fizzy stuff) that worked really well for me the last time I caught a cold.
Hope you feel better soon – Higgs Boson’s Mate had a cold with cough that lingered for several weeks. He finally went to the ER where they gave him cough medicine and an antibiotic that cleared it right up.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
How exactly is the hydrogen peroxide in your ear supposed to help? Can you be sure the sinus problem wouldn’t have run its course over a few days in any event?
fidelio
Hot toddies–pick the booze you prefer.
Steamy baths and showers with eucalyptus products. Dr. Teal’s makes a mint and eucalyptus bath soak, and there are those things called Shower Soothers.
Mucinex or its generic equivalent, along with a lot of fluids. It thins out the mucus so your body can deal with it more effectively–the coughing actually breaks the gunk up and moves it along, instead of being an exercise in futile rib-straining horking. They aren’t kidding when they say to wash it down with a full glass of water–your body needs the fluids to thin out the mucus,
Dextromethorphan is the cough suppressant in most OTC remedies. It’s especially sueful at night. DO not combine with drinks of Vitamin C-rich grapefruit juice, or take with MOA inhibitors. Do not exceed recommended dosage, as in high doses it’s a dissociative hallucinagen, which might distract you from your misery but is perhaps not something you want to deal with just now. They used to make little dissolvable sheets dosed with the stuff, like blotter acid, but I haven’t seen those in the store lately.
ZInc can’t hurt. Neither can throat lozenges or hard candy, but be careful about anything with a lot of cinnamon in it, as you can burn your mouth with that stuff.
Spicy foods, especially in a soup context.
As tissues go, my mother preferred Puffs–they used to be the softest of the major brands, and if one gets caught in the sheets it is less likely to disintegrate in the wash.
Vaporizors and humidifiers are good. Some decongestants can cause rebound congestion when they wear off. Be especially wary of nose drops and nasal sprays. If there’s a lot of sinus involvement, a neti pot might help. Otherwise, I’d skip it.
Make sure that the medications you take do not overload you on Tylenol/acetominaphen, as overdoiing this can cause liver damage–this is how many people OD on the stuff, because they didn’t realize it was in several different things they took at about the same time.
Nap as needed. If you have the bone-crushing fatigue that goes along with some colds, a nap here and there can make a big difference between mere snotty discomfort and utter bleary misery.
When napping, I apply dozing cats as practical. I do not know if boxers will be suitable for this purpose, but you can try if you like.
Naps. I already said that, but they’re like diamonds and good liquor–it’s not possible to have too much on hand.
I have a friend who heats up big mugs of chicken broth with a little hot sauce in it, and alternates that with the hot toddies. Not as much sustenance as actual soup, but it’s a hot tasty fluid that will replace electrolites.
Did I mention that sleep is Nature’s best remedy? It is. You’re not loafing, you are following a course of treatment,
Heating pads, the little hot-hands things they sell for hunters, microwaved buckwheat hull pillows, and strategically applied pets all can increase physical comfort.
Any kind of hot drink at all, and a nap.
Bill Arnold
@Mary G:
And don’t delay it. If you have a bacterial pneumonia, delay can mean a much longer recovery (or worse).
The one time I had pneumonia the doctor heard my cough over the phone (plus fever) and prescribed cipro to a local pharmacy, proviso that it be confirmed by chest x-ray (it was pneumonia). A 12 hour delay would have been bad.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: No, I’ve been fighting the sinus thing on and off since January. On Friday my ear completely stopped up. I couldn’t get it to unclog unless I did a steam inhalation or hot shower. I couldn’t figure out what to do and am very frustrated. I know there has to be some environmental issue going on. Or maybe a food allergy.
Anyway, something I read said to use it to kill any infection so I figured why not try it. I used to do something similar when swimming. I don’t know if it’s working or if it would have got better on its own but after doing it my ear seems better right away and stays unclogged for longer. So who knows.
Apparently some German doctor determined that people got colds and flu via their ears and said to do this when you first start getting sick to prevent it going any further. Some people report that working, but it’s the internet where quackery abounds, so who knows.
Txkid
Chicken pho, extra lime, extra jalapeno, followed with a Nyquil chaser.
andrew long
@fidelio: totally mucinex. I just got over this exact thing, and was taking nyquil/dayquil with the guaifenisin (and everything else), and it did no good, those were my worst days. then I dropped that and went with the mucinex (with dextro too) and got immediate relief. I didn’t need the decongestant so much, and it was messing with my head and blood pressure. Betty, drop the day/nyquil! just mucinex DM twice a day, and all the water you can drink and vaporizer you can inhale. and sleep, and chicken soup, and almost everything else folks suggest here.
Juju
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You mow need to be aware that every time you get the flu or a flu like virus you can have the lung issues associated with pneumnia. I had walking pneumnia in 1999, and I have had the precursors to pneumnia about half the times I’ve been ill with the flu. I was very close to being hospitalized when I had H1N1, but refused since I was uninsured at the time. Now at the beginning of flu season I get a prescription of levofloxin. If I cough up the green stuff I take the antibiotic.
shelly
Affirmative. When the days done and you get into your warm ‘jams, a cup of hot milk with a little rum. Better yet, some apple jack.
*****
People think of winter as the prime flu/virus season. But so many people seem to get sick end of March and April
Betty Cracker
Thanks, everyone — lots of good suggestions, especially applejack and spicy soup. I’ll probably give it a couple of more days before I go to the doctor. I’m stubborn that way.
Anne Laurie
Apart from seconding the ‘minute clinic’ / urgent-care idea — there are some nasty bacterial things circulating, and a nurse will be able to tell if you should be taking antibiotics — I’m of the school that anything which helps you sleep will help you recover.
One more idea that hasn’t yet been suggested: Those crafty Brits are investigating dark chocolate as a cough suppressent.
Oh, yeah — lip balm, applied frequently, on your nose & upper lip too. My allergist said cracked skin just invited secondary infections, as well as making you even more miserable. (I swear by Out of Africa orange cream, but YMMV.)
A.
If your bathroom can handle it:
Close the bathroom door/window and run the shower on hot. When the room has some steam in it (>5 minutes), go in and sit. Keep the hot shower running for awhile if you can. Sit there with the door closed for as long as you feel like it.
This helps a lot, and doesn’t need much energy to pull off. (You can dry the bathroom out with a fan later if the walls seem too wet.) It helps to do it more than once a day if you can. But even once usually makes me feel a lot better for awhile.
If you have a bathtub, here’s another remedy that seems extreme, but works real well:
Draw a warm bath, then while sitting in the water, lie down backwards in the bathtub with only your nose left out in the air for breathing through. (I have to hold my nose shut at first when I lie down backwards, to get the position right so I don’t inhale water.) As you lie there with your sinuses covered in warm water, they will start to open and drain better than anything else I’ve ever tried. It feels weird at first, but works well for me when I do it.
Mnemosyne
If you’re getting a lot of post-nasal drip (i.e. the snot is running down the back of your throat, not coming out the front of your nose), a neti pot can really help with that. (If you’re hoarse but don’t have a sore throat, you probably have post-nasal drip running like a faucet.) I had trouble with a “real” neti pot, but the Nasopure bottle worked for me.
I haven’t quite worked up the courage to try the late great General Stuck’s recipe for neti solution, which included a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
Mnemosyne
Also, I found out the hard way to NOT take Mucinex right before bed. I didn’t sleep at all since I was trying to cough up a lung. Don’t do that.
NCSteve
@PhoenixRising: When I was still hacking from the aftermath of a bout of pneumonia a couple of years ago, I whipped up a batch of the “cough medicine” version of that with orange blossom honey my 18 year old Elijah Craig Single Barrel (cause I was too damn sick to go buy cheap honey andmediocre bourbon). Same thing except no boiling water.
Didn’t do much for the cough and I was still too weak and sickly to enjoy the buzz, but damn if I didn’t make a point of saving it up to drink after I got better. Because good Godamighty it was delicious.
ranchandsyrup
pho with as many jalapenos in the broth that you can stand.
Then whiskey.
Annamal
Ginger lemon and honey boiled together into a syrup and mixed with hot water.
Also a hot soup with ginger, lemon/lime, garlic and chillis.
Honey seems to make my throat less irritated (I’m probably much more blase than I should be about coughing because I grew up with a form of asthma that meant I essentially cough half the winter away).
p.a.
Hot teas, soups, spicy or not. Sleep. I use 12 hour neo-synephrine, never had an issue but I know people who are addicted to nasal sprays. Zinc at the 1st sign of a cold. Zicam dose is every 3 hours. Really works for me.
gelfling545
Emergen-C. It seems to work well for me.
Also my old stand-by: hot tea with honey, lemon & a good shot of Jamiesons. Then wrap up warmly & sleep it off.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@PhoenixRising: My Sicilian immigrant grandmother thought bourbon was the greatest gift America gave the world. Cured all (ALL) ailments, including teething. Made me a believer, and for me that was over 70 years ago. In her case, tho’, it was not for birth control.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: At least he’s not lying on it naked.
serena1313
Betty, Iam sorry you are feeling poorly.
The best home remedy that I’ve found & swear by (& everyone who followed my instructions) that really & truly works:
– while drawing a really hot, hot bath
– add a whole container of Apple cider vinegar
– and a whole box of baking soda.
(yes this is for regular size tubs — use double for larger tubs)
Soak in the tub for at least 20 minutes — until the water starts to cool.
Put a hot washrag over your face for at least part of the time.
The combination of apple cider vinegar & baking soda pulls the toxins out of your body.
And then you have to get in the bed immediately, stay under the covers and sweat it out.
Or you can simply have a hot toddy, i.e., hot whiskey, honey and a dash of lemon. But that doesn’t really work. Hot toddies make you sweat, too, but they do not pull the toxins out of the body. (I like to do both)
By tomorrow, I promise, you’ll feel like yourself again. It really works.
JR
I am having the worst allergies of my life, and I grew up in Atlanta, where pollen counts have broken 9,000 before. I feel like someone gave me a head cold and a roofie.
reality-based
well, yes – go to the doc. please. seriously. the healthiest friend I had, a 56-year-old runner, died when flu sent her whole body into septic schock.
That said – the two best things I know:
Airborne. The fizzy tablets, dropped in half a cup of water and chugged 3 or 4 times daily. I knew some docs/nurses at Standford Children’s Hospital, full of immunocompromised kids, and they all swore by it.
Elderberry syrup. a strong antiviral, used as first line of treatment in Europe – really, this stuff works. Sambucol is a common brand –
from webMD
Elderberry is used for “the flu” (influenza), H1N1 “swine” flu, HIV/AIDS, and boosting the immune system. It is also used for sinus pain, back and leg pain (sciatica), nerve pain (neuralgia), and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) .
Some people use elderberry for hay fever (allergic rhinitis), cancer, as a laxative for constipation, to increase urine flow, and to cause sweating.
Elderberry fruit is also used for making wine and as a food flavoring.
“How does it work?
Elderberry might affect the immune system. Elderberry seems to have activity against viruses including the flu, and might reduce inflammation”.
also, of course, the spicy Pho. Also, epsom salts baths help with the aches.