Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Anslol on 27 Jun 2013, 08:52
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Whilst still being sick, I figured I'd ask you all what your own cold remedies are. I picked myself up some prescription meds to kill this thing, so I'll hopefully be on the road to recovery quick.
But aside from meds, what do you all do to violently murder that unwanted illness?
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What do you mean by meds?
I sleep, drink lots of fluids, and take that powdery vitamin stuff.
I also complain to all and sundry. Not sure it helps fight it, but it does make me feel better.
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What do you mean by meds?
I sleep, drink lots of fluids, and take that powdery vitamin stuff.
I also complain to all and sundry. Not sure it helps fight it, but it does make me feel better.
Any meds. I'm taking cefprozil now. Others take over the counters like dayquil but...that never works for me.
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You take antibiotics to fight a common cold? o.O
Usually, what I do is rest, sleeping a lot indeed, keeping warm and making sure to drink enough and have my vitamins (I prefer to not take them as powder but via fresh fruit and such).
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Yeah it's a family thing. We get a stupid amount of samples. When I was young and had this sort of thing, I'd be given cefprozil...odd enough.
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I'm with Nico, the cold is a virus and taking an antibiotic will likely only have a placebo effect at best. Our household remedy is pretty much drink a lot of juice. Orange or blackcurrant are my favorites. It helps with hydration and gives a boost of vitamins. I find it works best when you first start feeling symptoms, or if you realize that the people around you are sick and are trying to expose you to their contagion.
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It will, in fact, just make the shit that is in you more resistant to antibiotics. For the sake of the future of humanity and the deathplague you are nurturing inside of you, stop taking antibiotics for everything.
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It will, in fact, just make the shit that is in you more resistant to antibiotics. For the sake of the future of humanity and the deathplague you are nurturing inside of you, stop taking antibiotics for everything.
This. It'll also fuck up the good bacteria that you actually want inside you, too.
Karm, Makkal and Nico have the best solutions here. Juice/vitamins, rest, and constant vigilance. If your friends/roommates/whatever are getting sick, engage tinfoil hat mode, assume they're out to make you sick, and start juicing and vitamining the shit out of your system (within reason, of course - too much of a good thing can be bad for you).
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Chiming in on that. Antibiotics for a cold are worse than useless.
Get sleep, drink plenty of fluids. Vitamin C/zinc/etc couldn't hurt, either.
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Honey, preferable from a local source.
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Half a bottle of a decent five to ten year old port.
It doesn't cure the cold, but you won't care and it'll help you sleep, to boot.
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Going to chime in with everyone else here about the antibiotics. It's been a well known fact for as far as I can remember, that taking antibiotics for colds does far more harm in the long run to your body then good. Not to mention having no affects on colds, either.
Now, for cold remedies, well ... there really is none. However there are things you can do to help your comfort level while sick, and even help your body fight it off better. People already recommended getting rest and taking your vitamins (Vitamin C and some zinc, they do help). Drink lots and lots of fluids. My mother always use to encourage drinking what she called 'clear fluids' when ill, which usually consisted of things like water (the usual), Sprite/7-Up, and Gatorade. Food wise, stick with soups for a bit, like chicken noodle (more fluids, again). If your throat is sore, by all means, do take some pain medication for it, or otherwise it'll make it hard to get anything down. Tea with some honey in it, also good for sore throats.
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1.) Rest and fluids in large amounts.
2.) Humidity Helps! Use a humidifier, or hover your face over (NOT IN) a pot of boiling water, or take a steamy shower.
3.) Vicks Vapo-Rub under your nose, just a tiny dab of it. Just don't put any on your balls. Bad feels, man. Bad feels.
4.) Sleep with three pillows to keep your head elevated.
5.) Gargle warm salt water, or if you want to be highly effective, find something warm salty and sticky to coat your throat with.
6.) The only medicines you should be taking without a doctor's prescription are OTC ones to help with fever and congestion.
:cube:
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Eating fruit regularly tends to reduce tremendously the number of that kind of viral shit over time. Proven and proven again. Doesn't make you immune, of course, but helps a lot... Until everyone starts to cough in the subway and then you are pretty screwed anyway.
Otherwise, just got a rhinopharyngitis the last week and doctor just prescribed nasal sprays and pastilles. As usual. Do not need it, but it sure makes your life better in the process.
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Oh, and another thing: if you normally exercise regularly, go ahead and continue to exercise so long as you're not really miserable. It can cut down on the total time you're sick pretty radically.
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In case it hasn't been said enough: Zinc and Vitamin C. If I take them when I first feel the cold coming on, I can usually avoid the worst of the plugged-up ickyness. Dunno if that'll help now, but it's good to know for the future.
If you can tolerate it in the Summer, blastingly hot sauna-showers do help as well.
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Only those weak in faith are cursed with physical ailments.
MORE SCRIPTURES FOR YOU.
Physically: Lots and lots of zinc has been shown to reduce your cold by about 1/2 duration. Lots of water, juice, and soup.
Mentally: Distraction is the name of the game. Long, engrossing movies, or video-games that demand your attention. Stick in an extended cut of the lord of the rings for 4.5 hours and you won't even remember you are sick you'll be too busy crying over Frodo and Gandalf.
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/a0757fd2a2059741076ed257f94d920c/tumblr_mgdrq8vsoC1rwlwqno1_500.jpg)
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Honey and ginger in hot water is good for a sore throat.
Ginger also makes you sweat, so getting your body temperature high enough to kill the bacteria is a good idea.
So don't take any meds that would lower your fever.
Usually I go to sauna at one point or another when I am sick, it acts as kind of a catalyzer for the thing, whatever doesn't kill you makes you only stronger.
Also fuck sports, if you have a virus and it migrates to your heart, you're thoroughly fucked.
Sleep, loads of it, and a lot of food.
You need the energy to fight the illness.
Some swear by garlic, it is anti-bacterial (like honey) so just stick it into whatever you are eating.
Stay the hell away from anything with too much sugar, nicotine, caffeine, taurine, those will just keep you awake.
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You can buy lemon and ginger herbal tea. sweeten that with a teaspoon of set honey. Drink hot with some paracetamol. Get on with your day.
If it's an especially nasty cold, paracetamol can be safely taken at the same time as ibuprofen, as they go down different pharmaceutical channels. For best results, stagger the two drugs by two-hour intervals. Don't exceed the maximum daily dosage for either, and it's not a good idea to take Ibuprofen on an empty stomach.
And keep busy. If you let the cold drive you to curl up on your couch with a blanket you'll feel worse than if you just HTFU and get on with your day like a boss.
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18 hours couch naps have always made me feel better than 'hardening up' when it comes to being sick. They're also less likely to get someone else sick.
One thing I'll point out doesn't work for congestion: eating spicy foods.
Your sinuses will expand for a bit, giving you clear breathing for a few minutes, but then you'll produce more mucus and end up even more clogged than before.
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Sniffing peppermint extract has worked for me in the past for clearing sinuses. >_>
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Did someone already recommend chicken soup? I works, scientifically proven.
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18 hours couch naps have always made me feel better than 'hardening up' when it comes to being sick. They're also less likely to get someone else sick.
Fair enough, not spreading it is important. I'm letting my "I drive my own car to work, have my own office and don't have much face-to-face contact during the working day" show. I guess if I was carpooling or commuting on public transport or sharing an office with a couple other people I'd be more likely to call in sick... or wear a face mask.
But seriously, I've always found that I beat a cold best by distracting myself with doing things. If a cold stops me from going to work, that means I'm in bed hallucinating my balls off and physically incapable of moving beyond maybe staggering to the bathroom in my more lucid moments.
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I thought I read somewhere in AP Bio that medicine doesn't actually help you get better, it just helps alleviate the symptoms. :-p
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There are a few Polish folksy cold remedies you can try.
1. Mug of piping-hot milk mixed with at least a tablespoon of honey, and a dollop of butter. Really helps with horking up lung-horrors.
2. Garlic sandwich. Take slice of brown rye bread. Crush the fuck out of 2-3 garlic cloves, smear liberally on sandwich as spread. Eat. Trust. Just eat.
3. Vodka. Get really drunk on vodka. There is considerable value in the approach of rendering your body too toxic for diseases to survive in. I myself have a case of the snifflycoughy tonight, and plan to embark on this treatment plan. Have I ever told you all that I love you all? No? FUCK YOU ALL THEN.
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I tend to subscribe to four things.
1. Stay moderately physically active during the day. Your lymph system doesn't have a pump - it relies on your body moving. Also, moving around helps my sinuses stay clearer.
2. Lemon juice in hot water. I like sour stuff, and it's good for you.
3. Chicken soup. It's better if it isn't canned.
4. 2-4 shots of a reasonably good hard alcohol before bed, along with a cup of tea or two. Adjust alcohol to body weight.
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Frodo was a bitch... Wasn't so bad in the books.
I did cry when Gandalf the grey died in the book, though. Not in the movie, because I already knew that Gandalf the white was on his way.
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Spirits mixed in hot camomille tea and honey. Works every time.
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NO antibiotics whatsoever - as they do jack poop to viral strains - Maybe taken if I have a particularly persistent lung infection after the fact.
Painkillers if I must.
Otherwise the top hits from above - get comfortable (or at least distracted by work) and hammer juice, heated vitamin C rich drinks such as Ribena, and foods along the same lines.
I can't stress enough that antibiotics are not used for colds - best case nothing happens, worst case you half-dose it with some different, bacterial, nasty in your system and contribute to the rapid decline in the effectiveness of key antibiotics.
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Whilst still being sick, I figured I'd ask you all what your own cold remedies are. I picked myself up some prescription meds to kill this thing, so I'll hopefully be on the road to recovery quick.
But aside from meds, what do you all do to violently murder that unwanted illness?
Never been a fan of drugs, even genuine medicine I'm told to take for any illness (I don't like the idea of adding any chemical compound to my system that I don't know what is, and I am not much of a biologist...) so I just try to ride out any illness I'm inflicted with and don't do any druge unless specifically told to do so.
So I asked someone I respect that I met on a forum once. She gave me some advice.
"Anti-Cold Drink.
Hot water, mixed with the joice of half a lime and about a big teaspoon of honey. A real vitamin bomb. Good for when you're sick and have a sore throat."
Quoted exactly as posted on said forum years ago. I have not tried it myself so I don't know exactly if it work or how well. Nor am I sure if it will help cure what your suffering from.
If you try it out, let me know if/how well it works.
Oh and, I will accept no liability of you die horribly from food-poisoning :lol:
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Welp, turns out the antibiotic was good cause LOL SINUS INFECTION. But thanks for all the help guys.
You people are my bestest fwiends :3 :cube:
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You are lucky these antibiotics were the good ones for that bacteria though...
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Well I started with a weaker one and moved up to a stronger compound now. The issue now, however, is that it's persistent. It simply won't die despite how weak it is now.
AND it's causing coughing fits ONLY at night and preventing me from getting any gods damned sleep = =
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You should go see a doctor. It's not weak if it's persistent, it's probably already accustomed to your medication.
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I only started the new antibiotic last night before bed. Should wait to see how it works. It's never failed before. The last time I took it was...years ago for a sinus infection and it worked well. Also it's weaker in the sense that I'm not sore with a high fever and unable to even talk. It's a lot better now save for this bloody little cough.
Also also, I am seeing a doc, as they suggested the prescription (and also happen to be the man that raised me :p)
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Well I started with a weaker one and moved up to a stronger compound now. The issue now, however, is that it's persistent. It simply won't die despite how weak it is now.
The antibotic that you take whenever you feel like it is suddenly unable to deal with a bacterial infection in your body?
A shocking development.
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Actually no. I should probably clarify something.
I don't just pop an antibiotic whenever I have a cold or something like that. I was taught how to identify just what I have and how to treat it. I was also beat in the head with lessons about drug abuse/overuse and adaptations of said drug. When I was referring to the antibiotic popping, I meant in the context of having known what my illness is and knowing that an antibiotic will be able to handle it. I won't pop something big for a small cold.
Sorry for the confusion. Also, I didn't start with my normal cefprozil. I started with cephadextrine or something of the sort. It's weaker. The cefprozil is working now though. I feel much much better.
Funny though. I haven't had a sinus infection in so many years. This thing came out of nowhere O-o