Fall is here and with it comes colds like a letter in the mail. After my 30+ years in healthcare, I have seen most of the diseases and calamities, believe me, but nothing beats a man suffering from a cold. They cough, sniffle, sneeze and shiver, so one cannot help to feel sorry for them in their enormous suffering. If a woman says that oh, I’ve certainly got a cold, she puts on warmer clothes, has a little extra sleep, takes 2 Paracetamol and continues as usual.
Some would disagree (especially men), then I suggest to ask the women around you what they think, you might be surprised by the response you get.
I remember many years ago, there was a wonderful TV commercial in Sweden; I have forgotten what it was advertising, but not the scene. There is a man sitting at the kitchen table with a towel over his head inhaling steam for his cold. He lifts his head and looks into the camera (he looks like he’s really suffering and miserable) and then say’s more or less: “You women talking about how hard it is to give birth, but if you only knew how it feels when a guy has a really bad cold.”
Maybe not very nice but fun, you have to take it with a pinch of salt and a good sense of humour. Of course, not all men are like that and nor are all women.
In all the hot countries I have visited all suffer a lot when they get colds and are happy to take a course of antibiotics as a precaution. It is quite a firm belief that being cold is the cause of the common cold; getting wet in the rain, sitting in drafts or wind, to sleep with the window open if it’s below 20 degrees and having too little clothes on. The fact that it’s a virus is of secondary importance.
What can you do once you’ve got it?
Do not take antibiotics without being prescribed them by a doctor, in case you have received secondary disease such as bronchitis or similar.
Stay warm and drink plenty of water, the body loses a lot of fluid with a runny nose and fever.
Sleeping is healing, slept a lot so the body can use the energy to get well.
Hot tea with honey and cinnamon provide warmth, energy and facilitates coughing. Fresh ginger tea is good and helps to open up the airways.
Vitamin C is an antioxidant which has a positive effect, and obviously garlic with its proven efficacy.
If you’re coughing and wheezing with viscous mucus in the airways, N-Acetyl cysteine is good to take for it dissolves mucus so you can cough it out properly and thus avoid the sequelae of bronchitis.
Some form of a nasal spray, which is available at the pharmacy against stuffy nose can be useful or nasal cleansing with salt water. You can make a steam bath with bay leaves and breathe in the vapour which can release the congestion. Some say that if you put a small clove of garlic up each nostril they will open up well, I have not tried it yet so I cannot verify this.
If you have fever, you can take a fever-lowering tablet such as paracetamol if necessary, but the best is to sleep it off.
If you don’t have a fever, there is absolutely no danger to continue your day as you do when you are not runny. However, avoid strenuous physical activity when the body needs energy to get well.
Preparations Echinacea (purple coneflower) and Kan Jang (red hat + Russian roots) are proven good products but they are not completely safe, so do not take them if you have hypersensitivity/allergies to red sun hat and/or other Asteraceae (for example; mugwort, chamomile, daisy, wormwood, dandelion) or to any of the excipients.
They should certainly not be taken if you suffer from autoimmune diseases, progressive systemic diseases such as tuberculosis, leukaemia, collagenosis, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, HIV infection and other diseases in this group, or an impaired immune system, immunosuppression, or in diseases of the white blood cell system.
Just take it easy, sleep and relax you will be back to normal soon!
If it does not go away within a week, it might be a good idea to visit the doctor if nothing else than to rule out an infection.
