Lots of water and lots of rest, is that all?

Try Jewish penicillin. Guaranteed to work miracles!

if you tie a quarts cristle to your throre that will help. Use quarst in evry way posibal, it’s smashing stuff.

Yikes.

a series of painful injections in the spine should do it.

@Shilolo, are you licensed to dispence Jewish Penicillin? Am I gonna have to make you drop trou?

<peeking>

@drhat77. Why, thank you, I thought you’d never ask. Have you ever served time?

the headaches could be caused by not masturbating enough….just a thought.

Try pineapple juice for your throat. And swallow some Vitamin C!!!

Kids are back in school….the little buggers are spreading disease and pestilence every where they roam…

At the risk of incurring the wrath of our medicos, I will say that EmergenC and echinacea shorten the duration and intensity of colds for me (along with the chicken soup, which really does work). If I take both at the very first sniffle (and then for a few days), sometimes I can even ward off the cold altogether.

Feel better soon.

Thanks everyone for their answers. I hear spicy food helps too, is that true?

the value of echinacea is that it gives the patient the ability to feel they are actually doing something to speed recovery. we hate to feel that we are just waiting around for something to happen, we need to make it happen faster. as far as i know, it doesn’t have any side effects (?? anyone know better), so go ahead.

Ahem. After consulting with your physician before starting any new treatments. Of course.

Echinacea made me want to throw up.

Can’t beat Vit C.

@drhat No contraindications if you get one that is just the herb. Sometimes it is packaged with goldenseal, which is contraindicated for people with high blood pressure. What I like is it’s ability to dry up mucus which keeps one from sneezing and nose blowing. That to my knowledge has never been scientifically studied. I just have experienced it empirically for myself.

My old PA in the army swore that raising your core body temperature a few degrees in a sauna for 30 minutes is the fastest way to knock out a virus. Think of it as an artificial fever.

The Neti pot is my answer for this. I bought one last cold and it cut my healing time in half. A few weeks ago, I started out with the scratchy throat again and used the Neti to clear out. Love it.

Well….love is too strong a word.

I take vitamins, extra C and coldMD. I’m usually better in 2–3 days.

@ninjaxmarc I take vitamin C supplements regularly as well.

Sauna, Neti pot, vitamins… At the risk of sounding flippant, these are just anecdotes, and anecdotal “evidence” is just that…anecdotal. All of you might have gotten better despite your home remedies. This is why we have clinical trials. If the average person with a cold is sick for 4 days, and the average vitamin C user is sick for only 2, then we have something. But, if both are sick for 3 days, then its a wash.

shilolo – leave them their home remedies – people need to do something
also, people by nature are geared to respond more to anecdote than to numbers. it’s just the way it is. that’s WHY the scientific method was created.

zinc tastes bad but works for me.