That dreaded feeling...

[Verdandi]

...nothing concrete, no specific symptoms. Just a general blahness, sleepiness, slight fuzziness in the head. Slightly scratchy throat but then the air is really dry right now. Little bit of tightness in the chest but then that could be due to the sleepiness and the long walk in the cold air this morning...right?

So am I coming down with a cold or not? *hates the waiting*

[Lilosh]

Aye, you are.


Its going around. I have it too, and it has made me a very sick, sleep hobbit.


-Lilosh

[Chenier]

Drink an absolute ton of fluids, tons of juice (apple and orange are both good)...You might be able to knock it out with scaring the wits out of it with 40000% of Vit C...

I don't know if you live near a Trader Joe's, but their "Super Cee" juice drink is great for this. I'll go grab one when I'm feeling that one and half the time, I don't get sick.

*edit
in case you didn't know it was a drink =)

[Niami DenMother]

Aye, sweetie, you're coming down with something.

Extra fluids help. Extra sleep helps.

Extra vitamin C will help. (When I was dealing with strep last week, she basically said that when my body finally reaches it's limit on C megadosing, I'd get the runs, and until then, don't worry about overdoing it :O)

Another thing that I find to be VERY helpful, especially if you catch it during the earlier symptoms (like the ones you listed) is echinacea. It's good for giving the immune system a good boost, as long as you don't take it on a regular basis. (i.e., don't take it daily when you're healthy, save it for when your immune system needs the extra oomph). If you are a person that likes broth/bullion, Herb Ox (wanna say a branch of Wylers) actually came out with a chicken and echinacea broth (just add hot water), but you can also just find capsules/tables in many vitamin aisles of grocery stores.

[Tanaysa]

Sleeping with a humidifer may help, moisten the air and most of the new ones have filters to clean the air too, stick one in your bedroom while you are getting much needed rest.
If your "cold" lasts more than 7-10 days, see a doctor and it is probably an infection of some sort, Sinus, strep, etc
and Vit C is water soluble, so you can take it and take it and when it is too much you will ...ummm..*struggles to stay delicate*..easily excrete it out..

Take care now

[Lling]

Best help for a sore throat is hot orange juice. Oh, don't cringe, it tastes like orange juice - but at warm as you can stand it. My voice teacher taught me that years ago and it really helps. Honest.

Hot black tea with lots of honey and lemon juice.

Gargle with hot salt water.

The old stand by - Vicks Vapo-rub!

I've got it too.

I hope you feel better.

[Verdandi]

Shhh you all were supposed to tell me that it was just the lack of sleep and the cold, and you were supposed to say it loud enough to convince my body! :D

No really, I do appreciate the advice! Neither Super Cee nor Herb Ox rings a bell but if any stores beyond the ones you mentioned carry them, I know just the place to look. I've already started the echinacea though, popped the first one of those mere minutes after the realization that my fuzziness this morning was not just due to the fact that the sun wasn't up yet. Anyone found reliable recommended and maximum safe doses for that stuff? I've looked around on websites and didn't find anything that seemed sufficiently authoritative. I just try to stay in the ranges on the bottles, but those tend to vary widely :?

I also take a daily vitamin that gives me a big whoppin chunk of vitamin C, and usually have something full of it to drink with lunch. I spose I should probably whip up some orange juice too. I thought about a humidifier but my bedroom is enormous (15 by 35) and contains the computer so I'm not sure if it'd be effective or a good idea.

Don't worry bout me seeing my doctor though, I adore her! And I'm certainly not one to put work before my health...especially not when favoring my health means I can stay home and do tradeski-er, I mean sleep. :mrgreen: And if I stay home more than 5 days work requires a note, so I'd wind up going in even if I weren't already inclined to do so.

[Lling]

especially not when favoring my health means I can stay home and do tradeski-er, I mean sleep.

*snicker* I've done that for the last 3 days. :oops:

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

On the Echinacea Situation, for reference, the antibodies in Echinacea won't really help with a cold(since it's a virus) but it does increase the bodies production of White Blood Cells and it's absorbance of certain vitamins, so it will help make you feel better and your body fight of the cold indirectly. It helps a lot more with the flu or with a bacterial infection than it does with a cold, but any help is good help.

As far as how much of it you can take, well, like Vitamin C the phytochemicals(plant stuff that is good for you) in Echinacea are all water soluable so you can safely take as much as you want. If there is ever too much of it for your body to handle you will just "excrete" it out in a slightly unpleasant way. That maximum is really different for everyone. Unfortunately Echinacea is one of those remedies for which you will see diminishing returns, so taking more of it won't necessarily improve your situation over taking a small amount of it. Also taking it for any period longer than 8 days or so will make you temporarily "immune" to the benefits of the plant so like someone else mentioned it, be sparing with your use of it.

On a side note echinacea makes a wonderful addition to your flower or herb garden. It's basically a weed so it's very easy to grow, and the flowers are a pretty purple color with really cool looking spiked bulbs in the center of the flowers. IIRC(It's been several years since I had a cold/flu) the bulbs are the part used to make the medicine(or teas) and I believe you just grind them up to do so, but like I said it has been a while.

Well I hope you feel better. Like everyone else said rest and fluids are your best friends right now. And mom's chicken soup is a good thing too. Gargling with Warm Salt water helps if your throat hurts. I have never tried the Hot Orange juice but I would beleive a singer before just about anyone else with the situation so I might try that too. Take it easy and feel better please.

[Delandril]

Influenza, the flu, is a Virus. As for what the cold is, I'm not sure, but the term "the cold" is generally what we give to a variety of illnesses I'm sure, some of which may be bacterial in nature.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Honey Lemon Tea.
Earl Grey (or your black tea of choice) + slice of lemon (fresh, squeeze into tea then dunk the slice and leave in tea while drinking) + honey (sweeten to taste).

While it won't do much for the medical aspects of a cold as far as I know (well, asside from a few generically benifical aspects of black tea), it can be very soothing&energizing when feeling a little under the weather, as well as releaving to a sore throat.

[Ilona]

I use a hot toddy instead of tea:

A good amount of whiskey, a teaspoon of honey and a slice of lemon get put in a mug, and hot (boiled) water poured over the top. "Stab" the lemon well to vent frustration (and let out the juice!) and sip/drink as needed.

It might not help the cold, but it does help the mood! :P

[cadariel]

A friend takes echidnea for about 2 weeks, then takes two weeks off for maximum effectiveness.

You have my utmost sympathy though- I have an infected tooth, and it's bringing my whole system down under the weather.

(Yep, already been to the dentist. Got the penicillin pills.)

[Doomspark Deathfire]

Set up your bedroom with the following supplies:

3 gallons of hot tea with honey.
1 large jar of Vicks Vaporub
1 gallon of hot chicken noodle soup
Heating pad
3 cats
Pillows
High-end laptop with broadband connection for entertainment

Turn heating pad on Low and use it to pre-warm your bed. This will attract the cats.
Liberally apply vaporub to chest, throat, or other affected area(s)
Crawl into bed, gently displacing the cats.
Turn off the heating pad. The cats will return of their own volition.
Spend the day propped up with the pillows, eating soup and drinking tea.
Work on tradeskills

This is what I do when I come down with a cold. Works VERY well.

[Hilbur Helpmate]

Influenza is the flu but the "common cold" is also a rapidly mutating virus in general. Rhizo virus if I remember microbiology correctly. And there are bacteria that can cause cold like symptoms so....Strep is a bacterial (streptalococcus is think is bacteria's type).

[Verdandi]

Well, two days later I'm starting to think that my body successfully beat back the attackers before they got deeply entrenched. No sore throat yet and that's usually the very first undeniable symptom for me. So happily I haven't needed any of these remedies yet, aside from the echinacea (thanks for the notes on that!). But now I'm getting tempted to print this as reference for next time! I love Doomspark's system, only problem being that I'd have to skip the cats since they'd add allergies to the cold. Although if I'm sufficiently stuffed up I might be able to substitute dogs (less allergic to them) and get enough comfort to make up for the subsequent itching.

This is turning into a recipes for sickness version of the recipes thread in OOC, I love it :D

[Varlik]

Personnally I've always found sitting in a nice hot (wet) sauna for about 1/2 - 1 hour at 10 - 20 min intervals kills a cold fairly quickly. Luckily I have access to both dry and wet saunas for free so I use them massively during the winter and even during the summer if it's not warm enough for me.

[maddenus]

Wrap up really really hot when you go to bed. Make sure you are sweating then sleep lots. I find that I burn out a cold or flu better that way.

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

I only mentioned the stuff about antibiotics for referrence, because many people(myself included up until a few years ago) believe that they work on viruses as well as bacteria.

I also mentioned that they work better on the Flu than a cold, because in most instances a cold is *just* the viral infection, while the flu is often accompanied by various bacterial infections(variations of strep being one of the more common) which is one of the reasons why the flu can often be more serious symptom wise than a cold. Keeping those added infections down with antibiotics while the body fights of the primary infection speeds the healing time and lowers the severity of the symptoms.

Of course, any time you take any antibiotic, for whatever reason, the minute you are off of it, you will need to replace as much of the good bacteria in your body as you can. Accidophilus(common yogurt) for example, lives in the stomach and is necessary for much of the digestive process but is usually killed off almost entirely after any antibiotic regiment.

Mind you, I am not a doctor, pharmacist, nurse, nutritionist or apothecary. I am just a guy that spent about a year and a half in and out of the emergency room with pretty much every known throat and sinus infection and am relaying what I learned from my experiences. I will never deny the fact that I may be wrong, and often am, so take everything I say with a grain of salt please.