Is Zicam legit?
Asked by
josie (
30934
)
February 2nd, 2014
I hardly ever get sick. It is rare for me to get sick. But occasionally, when Global Warming kicks in, and it suddenly gets cold, and I also come into contact with others on a subway or something, I will get the early symptoms of the upper respiratory infection that people call the common cold. Years ago, it was about a seven day ordeal of congestion, coughing and generally feeling like shit.
Then, I discovered Zicam. First time I get the symptoms, I take that stuff, and the worst thing that happens, I feel sort of crappy for two days, no congestion, maybe a ten hour cough and then done.
I think it works. Or not. What do you say?
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13 Answers
I am not going to google the stuff that’s for sure.
You are leaving out one crucial variable.
You are older. Your body/metabolism/resistance is not what it was several years ago. Youthful health begins to deteriorate slowly; what you were immune to five years ago may well have changed.
Wasn’t that the stuff that gave people anosmia and was banned?
@Lightlyseared :: Also lots of cases of loss of smell. Sometimes permanent.
That is good. And scares me about their quality control.
My winter sinus miracle cure is a neti pot.
In warm weather I commute by bike and blow a quart of snot out of my head on my trip to work.
In the winter the neti pot cleans out my head in the same way. I breathe better, I sleep better, it’s the best.
I tried it once a few years ago when Robert Gantt was still in the commercials. I’m not sure if it shortened my cold, but it gave me an intense metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for days. I’d rather be sick.
@jaytkay I’ve tried using a neti pot a few times on recommendation from my grandmother. I just can’t seem to handle it. I’m sure I’m doing it wrong or something but every time I try it feels horribly uncomfortable and ends in me expelling water in every which direction.
I have taken them a few times but I always develop a sore throat whenever I use a zinc lozenge, so I spit it out. . I wonder if that’s the reason I can’t smell stuff now. I never used up the first lozenge when I tried it.
I think Zicam is a crock and so is all the other cold remdies. I just did a facebook status a few days ago because I was in shock the product Cold Eeze had the chutzpah to say in its commercial that it stops the replication of the cold virus. A facebook friend (who happens to be married to a doctor) argued that there is clinical evidence that zinc shortens colds. So, I bothered to google and there are clinical studies for zinc losangers that show relief from some symptoms like sore throat and cough, but does not reduce fever (fever is very rare in adults for a cold) and so that says to me it doesn’t do anything to shorten a cold or reduce replication of the virus, it just relieves symptoms like tons of other candies you can suck on or your mamas chicken soup. There are medicines that actually reduce pain and fever like ibuprofen and tylenol, and there are actual antihystamines and decongestants, but they do not shorten a cold either, they just relieve symptoms.
It also mentioned people losing their sense of smell from nasal sprays wth zinc, sometimes permanently.
Like someone said on my facebook—snake oil. At least in my opinion it is. I don’t believe in megadosing any vitamin or mineral unless someone is legitametly deficient. I definitely don’t think megadosing on zinc, or vitamin C for that matter, cures a cold.
Airborne had to pay fines for false claims about their, I call it, candy. It never ceases to amaze me that this sort of thing goes on. I don’t know what Zicam claims, they might be on the right sideof the grey line I don’t know.
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