Colds on the Cheap

Yesterday I felt the ominous beginnings of a cold. The sore throat, fatigue and headache started quietly. As I slipped two yellow tablets (the last of the 'real' antihistamines before we were saved from their harmful effectiveness) in with a glass of water, Scott filled the humidifier. NyQuil is my cold medicine of choice. But a few family members with flu and cold symptoms eliminates my stores of cold medicine, and really these medicines are only intended to treat the symptoms. What happens when I run out of the basics like cold medicine? Is it a necessity or a luxury?

The old advice of "take two aspirin and call me in the morning" has been neglected in a world of anti-virals, antibiotics, anti-germs. This germ-phobia seems to be contributing to weakened immune systems in children as well as creating a microcosm of super-bugs resistant to medications. We stopped using anti-bacterial soaps years ago hoping to do our part in discouraging super-bugs. Now, I am looking at ways to treat cold symptoms in a back-to-basics way.

Web MD provides 9 tips to treating cold and flu symptoms the natural way. Web MD suggests an extra pillow to elevate the head while sleeping. Getting rest sounds great, drink hot fluids, ( I am thinking licorice tea . . . If you have never tried it, you should . . . it's aromatic and soothing. Warm lemonade is also incredible), steamy showers and ointments like mentholatum. I am reminded of having a cold as a child where my mother would tuck me in to bed tightly with orange juice, Vicks on the chest and Mentholatum on a sore nose. We were even give our own roll of bathroom tissue (Kleenex were rare in my childhood.)

I am thinking the Vicks and a humidifier is less expensive and more comforting than those two yellow caplets. If it is only about treating symptoms, then a couple extra hours of sleep will only do a body good.