ok, how do i reduce the effects of a cold qucikly? ive got a very busy weekend ahead and i feel like 6ft3″ bag of flem!

Probably not very well! But I normally take Berocca daily when I get a cold and I find that helps. A massive tablet into water of vitamin c.

If you do find out how to cure it, i suggest you sell it to the drug companies…..:-)

Sleep and eat.

MTFU?

i dont know if its cause im not a fanny when it comes to illness, or eat too much dirt and have a monster immune system, but i havent had a cold in about 5 years.
i havent been ill in about 5 years thinking about it :s

and the office is full of people (lets call this group “women”) who seem to be “ill” every other day, and are constantly popping medicines, vitamins, paracetamol, herbal crap.

praps its just me being a miserable sod

get well soon MrCrushrider x

Vitcamin C, Paracetamol and a big cup of MTFU!

Voodoo

Doubt anything will get you properly well in 2 days…the above may help though, and time off work to recover.

Oh adn remember you can take paracetemol and ibuprofen together as they work differently on different things. Maybe worth taking if you have the relevant symptoms.

Oh adn remember you can take paracetemol and ibuprofen together as they work differently on different things. Maybe worth taking if you have the relevant symptom

Better spacing them out as both are 4 hourly.

ha ha cheers Olly, im not normally ill – 2 days of work ill in 2 years – but this bout of man flu has hit me hard and fast, it just came out of nowhere!

and yes i will try and MTFU!

a few dabs of speed?

enfht – hmmmm interesting suggestion, if i dont get any better by tomoro it may be my only option!

dunno if it did any real good, but back at chrimbo, when it seemed like everyone and their dog was going down right, left and centre, at teh first sniffle i was:
1 multi vit and 2 vit c/zinc effervescents in 1/3 pint orange juice, 1 3rd water, 1/3rd tonic water. add another pint of water. add fruit throughout the day.
2 vit c/zinc tablets during the day at 2-4 hour intervals, then in the evening, another pint of the concoction above, with a nip of cheap-5hit whiskey thrown in.
paracetamol as required.
worst i had was a couple of days when the rest of the world was in a right 2 and 8.

go and eat a spicy hot curry accompanied by at least six pints of horrible fizzy lager.

A wee dab of the white stuff.. That’ll see ya…

beechams of course…

so…is it a bad idea to train with a cold then?

beechams of course…

Why it’s just paracetamol packed out with crap.

1 multi vit and 2 vit c/zinc effervescents in 1/3 pint orange juice, 1 3rd water, 1/3rd tonic water. add another pint of water. add fruit throughout the day.
2 vit c/zinc tablets during the day at 2-4 hour intervals, then in the evening, another pint of the concoction above, with a nip of cheap-5hit whiskey thrown in.
paracetamol as required.
worst i had was a couple of days when the rest of the world was in a right 2 and 8.

‘Anecdote’ is not ‘evidence’.

But I normally take Berocca daily when I get a cold and I find that helps. A massive tablet into water of vitamin c.

The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.

beechams never does anything for me other than make me feel like puking, so i’ll give it a miss

Get a sleeping bag and go to bed inside it, under your duvet. Try to drink a fair bit too to stay hydrated. Hopefully you will sweat out the bugs , and avoid alcohol it really does not help.
If you have a smoothy machine make up a litre of fruit juice and drink that every hour or so. You should feel better in 24 hours or so.

HTH STM

pmsl at some of the wives tales being propagated here. Sweating out colds and vit C doses lol.

Common cold is a virus, it just has to run its course – all you can do is patch over the symptoms. I always find sudafed works a charm to dry up phlegm, manage temperature and reduce aches and pains (it has decongestants and other goodies that plain paracetamol doesnt have). Its expensive but I’ve tried many and its the only one that reduces symptoms for me. Other than that just get on with it – nowt you can do.

I believe they’ve just mapped the genome of all versions of the common cold havent they? They’ll be working on a cure currently then I guess.

Funny the BMJ states that there is some evidence to support Vit C helping the symptoms of common colds. Paracetamol and Ibuprofen are very effective for reducing temperatures hence why you Sudafed contains Paracetamol.

Drac – Didnt the BMJ recently point out that assuming youre eating a healthy diet you’re already getting more than enough VitC anyway (and the rest is discarded anyway)? And no, the BMJ do not link vit C to symptom curing, see their evidence searcher:

http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/conditions/rda/1510/1510_I3.jsp

Also I never disagreed with paracetamol reducing temps (I’m aware of the contents of sudafed!), which is why I suggested taking sudafed which contains it. I’d not suggested taking paracetamol and ibuprofen alone as it doesnt solve the rest of the issues like congestion – why take 3 different tablets if one does everything you’re looking for by containing the same things? Read more carefully next time.

Well that’s just it they’re assuming your eating enough Vit C so if your not then you may need to take more when you have a cold.

I didn’t suggest 3 different tablets I mentioned 2 if your wanting to control your temperature, I never mentioned decongestants as all. Not everyone suffers from congestion during a cold so taking something you don’t need is unnecessary.

Ah you’ve added a link since I read your thread, I can’t access it however as requires a login.

You should be able to get more than enough C from a normal diet, even a bad one – only people on a seriously restricted diet wouldnt get enough.

Common cold’d most common symptom is snuffly nose and excess phlegm (as the original poster stated they had) – so it would be needed, no? And even so, why take paracetamol and ibup when you can get sudafed (or the generic equiv) for sod all containing everything you might need for a cold. Thats like buying a car in kit form (and paying more) to build later, only lunatics would do it lol. I’m all for generics but mixing your own seems a little pointless.

The link is accessible from my site as we have institution access, sorry – didnt realise! It is the BMJs medical evidence doobry, says compared to placebo vit C shows no improvement in symptoms for common cold, test done in 2004, 3500ish test subjects. Test was based on reactive treatment once the cold started, rather than constant dosage before infection.

Sniffly nose isn’t the same as congestion though is it?

Reducing your temperture is always good for helping the body recover so taking Paracetamol helps like I’ve already said. Nothing like mixing your own as no need for the decongestant unless you suffering badly.

Interesting on the Vit C and probably one that will be long argued but taking more certainly isn’t going to harm you.

Thats like buying a car in kit form (and paying more) to build later, only lunatics would do it lol. I’m all for generics but mixing your own seems a little pointless.

one might already have both of these – I do, though I almost never take either, so it’s hardly lunacy to combine them if needed…

Your high temperature is designed to fight the bugs, so although taking paracetamol may make you feel better by lowering your temperature, it’ll probably take longer to actually shift the virus.

Last advice I was told was don’t keep blowing your nose, just wipe. Reason being when you blow your nose it forces mucus into your sinuses and takes longer to shift the virus.

3litres of water and a long long sauna session. Come out, rest back in and repeat. You will sleep like a baby and your cold will be gone.

There was recently an article in a popular mountain bike magazine about the impacts of colds over the winter months. Matt Hart wrote about prevention,nutrition and cure in STW Dec08

On getting over colds the advice was as follows:
– Takes loads of VitC, like 4 to 6 500mg tablets/day (based on the ability of other mammals to synthesise high level of VitC during illness) – interestingly he also noted that vitC is probably not that useful during normal periods if you eat a healthy diet. Apparently you’ll know when you had enough vitC when you feel the need to shit.
– Take echinacea twice a day (i can vouch for this definitely has helped me in the past)
– Take some L-Glutamine amino acid – helps immune system function properly
– Take zinc as the body needs it to recover
– Take cod liver oil
– Take garlic pearls (or a big curry as suggested above)
– Drink lots of water.

Also, personally i think the sleep lots and eat spicy food suggestions are really good.

with regard to sudafed/beechams/nurofen etc.

any branded cold/flu remedys have exactly the same active ingredients as the supermarket’s own branded ones at a quarter of the price. your paying for packaging, advertising and pretty logo printed on the pill…

Your high temperature is designed to fight the bugs, so although taking paracetamol may make you feel better by lowering your temperature, it’ll probably take longer to actually shift the virus.

Not so your mistaken some what.

Can recommend the Matt Hart method as it worked over Christmas for me. Took me 4 days though so may not be much help.