The common cold?

The common cold. This is a topic relevant to all of us as we move into the Fall season. Every year in the US, 100 million times a year, people visit doctors about this malady.
Jennifer Ackerman has a new book on the topic and was interviewed by Fresh Air, NPR.

There are close to 200 virus' that cause the common cold. Rhino virus being the most common. This begins about seventeen days after kids start school in the new school season. Then they bring it home, it goes to work and all over from there. The body makes a bunch of inflammatory agents that give us the symptoms of a cold.

Colds are not caused by cold, but by viruses. There was a suggestion however, that come from Jack Waltney who studied the cold for forty years: when your cold starts, take two, single ingredient drugs every twelve hours, until the symptoms are clear: non steroidal, like ibuprofen; then, antihistamine, like first gen., ones as in benadryl, or Chlor-Trimeton(not clariton or the newer drugs). It helps relieve build up of nasal fluid which can give you a secondary infection. Salt gargle is also good and helps you to feel better while you heal.

Have a happy, healthy cold season! A few things to consider:

• Get at least seven hours of sleep a night.
• Vitamin C is good but typically most if you work in very cold environments, or are an extreme athlete; take 200 mg.s of C and you can cut your cold in incidences by half.
• Zinc lozenges, nope, can even kill your sense of smell.
• Echenesia, maybe, maybe not, but typically you find little or none in a brand.
• Airborne branded homeo pathic product created by a teacher; however, it doesn't appear to work better than taking vitamins, maybe, the vitamin C in it helps some, but its overpriced if that's the case.
• Chicken soup, well, there were some anti-inflammatory actions in the lab.
  

NPR Article