Colds and Flu

Not much really needs to be said regarding the what’s and whys of getting the common cold, other than to

dispel a few very common myths. Please observe these truths:

• Antibiotics will not help you get any better, any faster.
• Please read the following essay called: Antibiotics For Your Cold
• The common cold is the flu!
• Not all flu act the same, have the same symptoms, or the same duration of illness.
• The “Flu Shot” will not save you from getting the flu, ever! Each year the Centers for Disease Control looks at the most dangerous strains of the influenza virus coming over from Asia. They then pick the worst 3, and make up a mixture of those exact 3 viruses. They modify the virus first (sort of like cutting their legs off) so they can’t harm us. Your body however doesn’t know they are harmless, and will mount a full scale immune response immediately. That’s why you’ll sometimes feel sick after the flu shot. The idea is that if and when your body happens to meet that exact dangerous virus, it will have a specifically reserved army in it’s defense, ready to go. But since there are over 200 known viruses carousing the world we live in, you’ll probably get one of the other less lethal ones to make you suffer this winter!

Treatment and Expectations:
Stuffy noses, ear pressure and sinus pressure can be easily treated at home. The nasal mucosa becomes inflamed and swollen from a heightened allergic response to the viruses, and from dried mucous (boogers) causing the passages connecting the ears, sinuses and nasal cavities to become clogged. Since the sinuses and ears can’t equalize, the pressure increases, becoming painful and often times unbearable. People often jump to the conclusion that they have a sinus infection, but these really are exceedingly rare. You have to remember that just because you blow some green mucous onto a tissue, doesn’t mean that you have a sinus infection.
Treat this at home with some OTC nasal decongestants such as Sudafed. This will open the passages a little and help equalize the pressure. More importantly, you also need to wash off the nasal mucosa so that the passages are cleared, and stop the virus factory in your nasal cavity that reproduces new viral loads for you to swallow.
Here is a trick that I learned from an Ear Nose and Throat doctor friend of mine that works great, but requires some real guts. Wash or douche your nasal cavity out by making up some saline solution (1/2 teaspoon of table salt + 1 cup of water), and literally snorting it up your nose! By now you must be horrified and ready to find another website, but please read on. The salinity of the salt water solution matches the salinity of your own mucous, so it won’t burn your nose when you do this procedure, nor can you choke on the water as you might think. Other saline sprays are OK for misting and moisturizing, but don’t do a drop of good for really cleaning your nasal passages out. You can use some Afrin Nasal Spray or Neosinephrine Drops if your desperate but only for a couple of days in a row. In They have a very high incidence of “addiction” due to “rebound congestion”. This nasal washing technique, along with some Sudafed works very well for the stuffy head syndrome of the flu virus.
Sore throats and laryngitis are one on the hallmarks of the flu virus. It seems that four out of five of my patients that get laryngitis happen to be 411 operators! It usually last less than a week, but then everyone is different. Do plenty of salt water gargling and drink lots of fluids. It really helps to keeps some sugar free cough drops like Hall’s Cherry in your mouth so you can continue swallowing, thereby washing the bacteria down to your stomach, so your stomach acid can kill it. Of course you could get strep throat caused by the Streptococcus bacteria, but this is pretty uncommon in adults. If you look with a flashlight, you would see a cherry red color throat and may have little hard white white dots on your tonsils.
Coughing can be controlled with Delsum or Robitussin or other cough syrups. Your healthcare provider may prescribe you a cough syrup with codeine if your cough is really bad, but this stuff often makes you nauseous and sleepy, not to mention constipated! Again, keeping some cough drops close at hand allows the throat to stay wet, and help to avoid the cough reflex. Also, drink plenty of water, the fluids help thin out the mucous so you can hack it up. The truth is, no cough syrup really works!! It simply reduces you cough reflex a little.
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and upset stomach will probably ensue making you feel even more miserable. Because of this you may not feel like eating or drinking anything. You must however remember to drink lots of clear fluids, even though it may lead to more diarrhea. Besides flushing your system out, you are replenishing lost fluid due to diarrhea, thereby avoiding dehydration. In addition, increasing fluids acts the same way as putting water in the radiator of your car to keep it from overheating. Marezine is a good antiemetic (antinausea) that can help relieve the nausea, vomiting and general queasiness of flu. Benadryl will help dry up mucosal secretions. As far as eating when you have nausea and vomiting, the good old B.R.A.T. diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast) seems to be the easiest thing to keep down, as long as you eat very small amounts at a time.
Fever, generalized weakness and body aches are generated by the immune system fiercely battling the virus. Fever, which is one of the body’s defenses against the virus, is also a major factor in making your muscles ache and feel listless and tired. The best defense to fight fever aches and pains (as long as you don’t have a history of ulcers) is Motrin and plenty of fluids. If the fever is tough to control, you can add in Tylenos on top of the Motrin. Both of theses medicines work on different metabolic pathways to decrease fever. Just bringing your temperature down to normal will alleviate much of the muscle ache.
Most of the other “Flu Remedies” are simply premixed variations of these. You may find one or two that work well for you, but most people find they really don’t do much better with them. Besides, many of the elixirs have a great amount of alcohol in them.
Summary:
All the symptoms of the influenza virus are self limited and your body will heal itself. Common sense, symptomatic care, and plenty of fluids and rest will be your best moves toward prompt recovery. Don’t hesitate to take a few days off of school or work. The more you push yourself now, the weaker your immune system gets, and hence the longer you take to fully recover. There are so many home remedies and other techniques that have been developed over the years (as well as hundreds of recipes for chicken soup!), that we can’t list them all here. I recommend reading 77 Ways to Beat Colds and Flu , especially if your family gets recurrent colds, year after year. This book was rated 4 stars by amazon.com and was said to be very easy reading.