First signs of a cold

[HomerJ]

Originally Posted by javyn

50mg of zinc daily (or every other day if you are concerned with zinc toxicity) and mega dose Vitamin C. I'm not talking 500mg, 1 gram, or even 3 grams. If you are already sick, you should be taking 20, 40, or more grams daily. Dose to bowel tolerance, ie, keep increasing your dose every hour until you get diarrhea. Once you get diarrhea, decrease dosage by 1 gram. That is the amount you should be taking.... Before I get a bunch of accusations of quackery, let me defer to Dr. Linus Pauling, winner of two noble prizes; one for discovering the alpha helix, the other for founding orthomolecular biology. This was his regimen for when he felt a cold coming on.
I've taken vitamin C and zinc gluconate, along with water and rest, and it's worked for me at staving off an oncoming cold. 20+ grams/day of vitamin C is excessive though. Plasma vitamin C plateaus at a much lower dose, the rest is excreted. You're subjecting yourself to diarrhea and greater risk of kidney stones at those extreme doses, even the Linus Pauling Institute would agree.

 

[javyn]

Pauling found that what wasn't absorbed was not excreted, but hung around the bowel scavenging free radicals.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue, it seems arguing against the wisdom of my hero, Captain Murphy, would just be blasphemous!

 

[HomerJ]

I once took some echinacea tea and man it knocked me out for a few hours. It's supposed to stimulate immune system activity and I suppose that requires energy because I was extremely fatigued and sleepy. I can't remember if it helped or not.

Originally Posted by javyn

Pauling found that what wasn't absorbed was not excreted, but hung around the bowel scavenging free radicals.
He could've also administered the vitamin C intravenously in some of his studies which allows for MUCH higher plasma concentrations, at least 10 times higher. Anyway, I think this is in the context of treating a serious disease like cancer. IV injection for a cold is pretty extreme!

Anyway, I'm not going to argue, it seems arguing against the wisdom of my hero, Captain Murphy, would just be blasphemous!

And if ultra high doses work for you then I will not argue

 

[TGPlastic]

Masturbate to Internet Appreciation for 3 hours then go to bed without drinking any water.

 

[dusty]

I'm probably late to the party, but my recipe is Zicam + lots of water and V8 (usually with hot sauce, just because), NyQuil, a very hot and long bath and as much sleep as I can bear. In that order.

 

[Liberty Ship]

+1 on the Zicam. That, plus maybe Echinacia and Oil of Oregano. Actually, I've been keeping Zicam at the office, home, and in my car. I figure that if you use it at the first sign of flu, it might have a mitigating effect. Worth a try.

 

[marin]

+1 on the Vitamin C

 

[tagutcow]

Yes, tickle in the back of the throat is a good sign of oncoming sickness for me.

Also, strangely, lowered tolerance for alcohol.

Honestly, I've been sick to some degree or another more often than I've been completely well since before last Christmas.

 

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by tagutcow

Yes, tickle in the back of the throat is a good sign of oncoming sickness for me.

Also, strangely, lowered tolerance for alcohol.

Honestly, I've been sick to some degree or another more often than I've been completely well since before last Christmas.

Be careful what you disclose in this forum. I predict that before too long someone will come up with an armchair diagnosis and you will be surprised to learn that you have AIDS.

 

[Arch Stanton]

Theraflu with one shot of nyquil added and 1 airborne tablet. I take this the 1st evening on the day i start feeling effects of a cold or the flu, been working wonders for 3 years.

 

[Liam]

Chocolate.. Have a read...

Could chocolate be more effective than codeine in treating coughs? And if so, how much chocolate would it take? Research published November 17, 2004 in FJ Express, which will appear in The FASEB Journal in January 2005, makes a strong case that dark chocolate may be a powerful cough suppressant. A cough is a healthy, protective reflex - part of the body's way of protecting and healing itself. But sometimes coughs can interfere with other important paths to health, such as sleep. Sometimes kids cough more or longer than useful for them, and parents turn to cough medicines to seek relief. In the United States alone, more than $2 billion dollars are spent each year on over-the-counter cough remedies. The evidence that the benefits of these outweigh the side effects is inconclusive. When stronger relief is desired, parents often turn to prescription cough medicines containing codeine or a similar compound. Wouldn't it be interesting if dark chocolate were even more powerful? Researchers at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London gave a series of disguised capsules to healthy volunteers. One week the capsules contained 60 mg of codeine, one week they contained 1000 mg of theobromine, an ingredient in chocolate, and one week they contained an inert placebo. The volunteers then inhaled increasing amount of capsaicin, an ingredient in red peppers used to stimulate coughing in research subjects. The codeine was effective at preventing coughs, but the cocoa ingredient was 33 percent more effective, preventing cough effectively for 4 hours, and had no side effects. The same results were seen in coughing guinea pigs, and when looking directly at the guinea pig and human vagus nerve, a nerve that triggers coughing.

How much chocolate would this be? Chocolate preparations vary widely, depending on their cocoa content, but dark chocolate often has up to about 450 mg of theobromine per ounce. Milk chocolate has far, far less. Two ounces of dark chocolate was about the amount of theobromine used for the adults in the study. Half that may be plenty for kids (but of course there is still a lot to learn about this marvelous food). Will that much chocolate keep them awake? Even though theobromine is structurally related to caffeine, studies have shown it doesn't interfere with sleep at those amounts. I used some fine dark chocolate for my own family during our latest viral cough illness, and our coughs disappeared nicely. What a pleasant way to get through a cold!

 

[The Snob]

Well did the Zicam lozenge (actually, the cheaper CVS knockoff version) thing yesterday and continuing along today. Seems to be keeping the cold at bay. Still can't tell if the throat is better or not. Nonetheless, this is hopeful!

I'll be doing this (and lots of lemon tea/vitamin c and whatnot) going forward anytime there is a sign of an oncoming cold.