Whatever is to be done about the sniffles??

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

18:18 / 19.05.05

I don't get sick often (knock on wood), but I do take echinacea at the first sign of a cold and think it works. At least the placebo effect is working. When I am sick, I load up on Vitamin C - tablets and OJ - and that seems to do the trick.

But if you're getting sick often, you might want to get at the root of the problem. Could you have seasonal allergies? Some other allergy (dust, dander)? A poor diet?

18:20 / 19.05.05

Hardcore spicy food with a ton of garlic and chili in it should go some way to sweating it out, plus drinking lots of hot toddies. Booze + garlic = health.

paranoidwriter waves hello

18:20 / 19.05.05

Do you smoke?

Tryphena Absent

18:22 / 19.05.05

Are you sure it's a cold? I only ask because I had mega-hayfever last week, it felt exactly like a cold, my head was blocked up, you know that feeling where you sure you've got a temperature, I had that.

Alex's Grandma

18:25 / 19.05.05

Lemsip ( though not that stuff they've developed lately that's supposed to get you to work on time even if you're half-dead in the morning, the other kind, ) with a large scotch stirred in, last thing at night. The main thing is to make sure you get lots of sleep, which this will help with.

Day Nurse and Night Nurse are also good, Day Nurse capsules, Night Nurse liquid.

18:41 / 19.05.05

I'm with fridgemagnet. When I get a cold I finely chop a clove of garlic and stir it into a glass of hot water, then down it one. It's nasty but it I find it really helps.

Garlic, ginger, and lemon are all natural antibiotics (or so I'm told).

Oh, and change your toothbrush.

doozy floop

18:42 / 19.05.05

*sniff*

I'm pretty sure they've both been colds rather than hayfever or allergies. Spicy food is on its way; orange juice is flowing; we're sadly lacking in the ingredients for hot toddies; yes I smoke; and I sleep *all the time* so surely more sleep isn't possible??

Should I be eating more apples, hmm? And can booze really help?

18:48 / 19.05.05

Well, I don't have the best diet in the world - I'm sure it's a little short on fruit & veggies - but I take a multivitamin and have done for years. I typically get sick once in the winter and once in the summer, for 2-3 days at a time. I also drink my share of beer but I'm not sure that's what makes me so healthy... then again....

19:01 / 19.05.05

Well smoking seemingly depletes vitamin c (or so I'm told unless it's complete bullshit) makes you more phlegmatic and impedes healing.
So that may be why you are getting colds, so cod liver oil tablets as my dear old mum says. I tend to smoke through my colds which inevitably turns into a near/actual chest infection but really coughing up that horrible gunky shit shurely is good for you, I mean better than it staying internal. or so my oblique and faulty logic goes.

19:05 / 19.05.05

What does Barbelith do about allergies and the accompanying symptoms?

20:27 / 19.05.05

Drop acid.

grant

22:28 / 19.05.05

Dude.

22:32 / 19.05.05

Are you refering to the quack theory I read about somewhere a few years back about re-educating your body with acid?

Tryphena Absent

22:35 / 19.05.05

What does Barbelith do about allergies and the accompanying symptoms?

I suffer.

Billuccho!

22:47 / 19.05.05

Nyquil (or generic derivative thereof). Lots and lots of it.

The Puck

23:15 / 19.05.05

i always find manual labour or exercise works, sweating the illness out, if that doesnt work at least you sleep for a hella long time.

Try digging a really big fucking hole.

---

01:17 / 20.05.05

I think you'll do fine, spicy food and fresh orange juice are good to have when you get a cold. I usually have a couple of tropicanas because it's pure and not from concentrate, keep warm as much as possible to help with the sweating it out bit, and mainly : cut down on the smoking whilst having the cold. That will help you heal faster.

lonely as a cloud...

06:52 / 20.05.05

Doozy - I'm in more or less the same boat - smoker with sniffles. Lemsip max strength when I feel worst and multi vitamins every day is my regimen, and it kind of works. Plus, I find a bit of spliff relieves the worst symptoms, although obviously not a good idea for work purposes...

14:22 / 20.05.05

Update: I did one better on the "spicy" food remedy. I managed to get jalapeno pepper in my eye. Again. Then I shoved my finger up my nose just to see if it would clear out my sinuses. No dice.

ShadowSax

14:36 / 20.05.05

when i get a cold i call in sick and try to milk the fucker for all its worth.

Grey Area

18:27 / 20.05.05

Another vote for the Lemsip (max-strength before bed and ordinary during the day) and vitamins approach, although I combine it with litres upon litres of water throughout the day and early bed-rest. And you know, seeing that I am currently beset by a cold, I might just go and do that now...

Chiropteran

18:53 / 20.05.05

What does Barbelith do about allergies and the accompanying symptoms?

I'm following a suggestion in The Green Pharmacy: horseradish (or wasabi). A spoonful a day for a month or so, then maintenance dose about once a week, after. I'm only a couple weeks in, but my allergies are already noticeably less debilitating than usual (and I have year-round allergies). We'll see if it holds when pollen season really kicks in (and my car turns that vivid yellow-green).

Sekhmet

19:00 / 20.05.05

A spoonful of wasabi??!

You are a better man than I...

Chiropteran

19:58 / 20.05.05

It's milder when freshly mixed.

I usually use horseradish, though.

20:16 / 20.05.05

I've read that getting local organic honey is the remedy for pollen allergies, but it sounds like a bit of a wives' tale to me.

20:19 / 20.05.05

Dude, local NYC honey is expensive! I guess because it's technically illegal to keep a beehive on your roof. Note: people actually do this. Imagine how much cooler "Ghost Dog" would have been were he to have BEES instead of PIGEONS.

20:20 / 20.05.05

er, read that "roof", not "room"

Mourne Kransky

20:33 / 20.05.05

When I was a chain smoker, I never got colds. Now that I am nicotine free I will live forever but I'm always fucking snuffling.

Fruit and fresh air are good cold preventitives, I hear. Might try one or the other some time soon.

20:36 / 20.05.05

Apparently smoking dulls allergies like hayfever etc. Is this true? How? Anyone?

w1rebaby

21:16 / 20.05.05

Bollocks I'd wager - I've started sneezing unexpectedly and continually, I have no history of hayfever but I have been smoking a lot more than usual.

Yeah, anecdotal, post hoc ergo propter hoc etc.