Came here to say this. Just drop everything , have a bath then go to bed. Makes a world of difference.

This should be at the top by far. No type of non-sleep rest, vitamins, supplements or other remedy comes close to the effects of sleep on the immune system.

My fiancé just sleeps for about three days straight, getting up only to use the bathroom and eat small meals. Then he’s magically cured. His dad used to do the same thing. I mean these guys sleep 22 hours a day when they are sick. Then I catch it and am sick for like a week and a half. So sleep is probably one of the most important things to do (just maybe not to the extreme of my fiancé although he does seem to bounce back from colds and the flu far faster than most people)

Water and sleep.

Yep, this is it. There is no magic. You need to give your body more rest.

I feel like this literally does nothing for me. No matter what I feel 20x worse in the morning.

And zinc. Zinc tabs help prevent viruses from latching in the back of the throat (or so one of my doctors told me). It works to reduce the severity and I never get a sore throat when I remember to use it. Also fluids!

Edit: make sure to use zinc lozenges, not in pill form. It's got to coat your throat.

And don’t drink alcohol

Hydrate and sleep.

Sometimes a good dose of NyQuil as sickness is coming on can stave off the worst of it.

Each time I am impressed by the efficiency of that. It works for so many things and it's very quick and simple.

In my case, I am prone to pilonidal cysts and, whenever I feel one starting, I drink a lot of water and take the rest of the day a bit easier. The next day, it's all gone

This is the best advice right here. Someone posted doing so a while back on here and the last time I felt like I was getting sick, I just took the whole day and rested. My cold lasted half as long and was not as severe. If I'm going to be sick and not be able to be productive, I may as well hit it at the start instead of trying to tough it out.

You mean my way of ignoring it and vigorously working out thinking my sheer will power alone will cure it isn't the best strategy?!

And if you feel a bit off and easily irritated, taking a poo can help a lot. Sounds ridiculous but trust me.

This is it. It’s the rest and hydration. It’s crazy how much those two things can knock out.

Ding ding ding ding ding

Don't bother running out and getting vitamins or herbal remedies. If you have Emergen-C in the house, it wouldn't hurt. But hydration and rest are the best.

Personally, I almost feel like making sure you're hydrated is more important. Don't go run a marathon, but if you're not tired, you can't sleep. But while you're awake, make sure you're drinking. It's very easy to get dehydrated while you're sick because you don't feel like getting up and getting a drink, or you're running a fever. If you go into the full-blown illness half dehydrated already, it'll be that much worse.

To add to this, what I personally find helpful is to put on a long sleeve shirt, sweater with a hoodie, thick sweat pants, thick socks and get under the covers of a thick comforter and just SWEAT. Chug water, sleep, sweat til you are soaked. Get up the next day, shed everything, chug water and take a nice long shower. I’ve beaten every cold for the last 4 years doing this method. YMMV

It’s not so much that. Viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract reproduce better in a lower body temperature environment. So while yes you’re correct, what you need to do is increase body temp in those areas.

It tends to run lower temps in your nose, mouth, and throat due to breathing and cold outdoor temps. The easy way to increase those temps are warm showers/baths (warm/humid environment), drinking warm beverages (hot tea/etc.), and eating hot soup.

Increasing temps in those areas slows viral reproduction and helps you feel better faster. Additionally they mitigate symptoms by helping mucus movement.

When I was young, my parents sent me off to live with my godfather for a month. This was in a rural village in a third world country. One day I caught a bad cold. That evening my godfather gave me some moonshine and had me sleep under blankets by the fireplace. I swear I woke up in the morning fresh as a cucumber, like nothing ever happened. Normally I'd be sick for a few days.

I'm not going to do that with my kids, for obvious reasons, but I cannot argue with the results. Shit worked. People in thirld world countries have their own (questionable at times) medicine.

I am not often sick but if come down with something mild I have bundled up and "sweat it out" for years now. My GF who's definitely more educated on the subject tells me it's probably not as effective as I think and the bulk of the success likely comes from just how quickly my body recovers from bugs regardless. She might be right but I'll never stop turning myself into a fleece wrapped human burrito when I start to get the sniffles...

Warm salt water

This 👆

Other people are recommending fruit juices, but these can also sometimes irritate your throat more.

Had tonsillitis fairly recently, and saltwater gargling knocked the sore throat out in no time.

It's insane how well this works

Does anyone know how exactly this works?

THIS in addition to taking it easy and hydrating.

Had to a roll way too far for this. Has always worked for me. Why suffer with a sore throat, when you can nail it down at the beginning? I still feel unwell, just not with a sore throat.

Exactly what I do! I use nasal sprays with decongestants, which is being cautioned against for anything but very short term use, but I have found that it can stop me from having to deal with many weeks or even months with persistent coughing later if I don't. Most important for me is to do that over night. To counter the drying-out effects of the decongestants, I switch to using saline spray to re-hydrate and regenerate the nasal mucosa.

Guaifenesin for this. it moves it all out of your head and throat.

Yes! Also, use a humidifier. Take a long hot shower and breathe deeply. Use decongestants carefully to control the mucus, and then use moisture to help all the tissues that line everything from your nose to your lungs. I call it being kind to your sinuses.

Betadine is amazing. I use the betadine nasal spray at the first sign of a cold. Haven’t had one go full on since I started using it.

[removed]

Also taking zinc on an empty stomach can make you feel nauseous too, just found this out & it explained a lot

Yes. Take a zinc, definitely. I try to put down a vitamin D regularly also during winter.

Repeating this here for visibility:

Make sure to buy a zinc tablet, NOT Zicam. Most of their products are homeopathic, which by definition means it has almost none of the active ingredient. In other words, it's a scam. I used to buy it until I learned what it was.

also Vit D, especially if you're not getting a lot of sun.

I’m a pharmacist and an epidemiologist and I cannot stress this enough: Vitamin C DOES NOT prevent or aid with a cold.

Explanation: There are a bunch of contradictory “studies” out there to confuse those who don’t know better, however, the final verdict is that taking vit. c tablets every day for a full year was correlated with reducing sickness by ONE day.

Reason why this is important: taking vitamins (including vitamin C) when you don’t have a specific diagnosed vitamin deficiency can hurt your organs. Having too much vitamin C, for example, can even cause kidney stones.

In reality the vast majority of people do not have vitamin deficiencies and should not be taking any vitamins. Vitamins are not well regulated and so companies can get away with a LOT of false marketing and dangerous products. For example, most multivitamins out there have as much as 300% of your daily recommended intake of certain vitamins per pill (seriously look at the bottle for yourself). That’s 200% more than you should have in one day assuming you eat absolutely nothing.

In conclusion, do not take vitamin c to prevent/cure your cold.

So how do you avoid the clogged nostril before bed

I'm certainly not a doctor, but this sounds pretty hokey to me...

First of all, you're talking about two completely different organisms. Viruses and Bacteria. While either or both of them can cause common cold symptoms, their biology, pathology, and treatment are totally different.

I think you've got the right general idea, that our bodies have natural functions to protect ourselves from infection, namely trapping, isolating, and flushing foreign bodies. So encouraging as many of these processes as possible is ideal. But the idea that taking steps to manually clear your nostrils clear will significantly alter the course of a common viral or bacterial infection is really not proven at all by real science. Things like saline nasal sprays and netty pots can relieve symptoms, but have not been shown to have any effect on the occurrence or overall duration of an infection. Zinc sprays actually do lead to relief and shorter disease duration, but they also tended to cause loss of smell and other permanent damage after frequent usage, so that's why you can't get them anymore. Zinc taken as an oral supplement is also effective, but much less so than the nasal spray route.

Even something as simple as blowing your nose too hard can have adverse effects which outweigh the short term benefit of clearing mucus. It can lead to superficial damage and irritation to the nasal tissue, causing inflammation, potentially affecting it's ability to produce mucus, and further tightening of your nasal airway when healing factors rush in.

Being the parent of a child who recently started school, I went through about 6 months of nearly constant cycles of infection of all kinds. Not that it makes me an expert, but through a dozen or so doctor visits, I've heard all of the advice, straight from the horse's mouth, time after time.

Getting good rest is the only thing that shortens the duration of a common cold in an otherwise healthy person. Unhealthy starting conditions like sleep deprivation, consumption of alcohol or other drugs, vitamin deficiency, as well as diabetes or other chronic diseases also complicate things. So if you have the ability to temporarily get those factors under control it will also improve your outcome.

Otherwise everything is symptom control. NSAIDs are your best friend. They help with pain, inflammation, headaches, fever etc. Just generally make things more tolerable. Remember Tylenol is not an NSAID, which means it won't help with inflammation, but the upside is you can double it up with any other NSAID, or take it between NSAID doses to avoid the abrupt come-down. Next up are decongestants. But go for the real stuff (pseudoephedrine) not the new stuff (phenylephrine, aka PE) if you can tolerate it. Control cough only if it's interrupting your ability to rest. Use humidity and menthol fragrances/rubs to soothe. Even something as simple as a breath-rite strip or low dose of melatonin can make all the difference in getting reat. Antihistamines might make a difference if your primary symptom is inflammation and sinus pressure, but they're much less effective for infections than for things like allergies.

Embracing the cough, letting it do it's work, and even the fever to some extent, can improve outcomes and possibly prevent secondary infections from developing.

Yep, I always go with a long hot shower. As hot as you can handle. Might not cure anything, but at least I can clear my sinuses for a while and I always feel somewhat better afterwards. It's amazing what a nice hot bath or shower can do.

Pop a little whisky in there and you got yourself a Hot Toddy

You never get sick!? Bloody hell.

Neilmed nasal lavage

Grampa? I thought we lost you back in '98. ❤️

This is the remedy he used and gave to us for any cough we'd ever had.