Minimize the Effects of a Cold

[myshtern]

I woke up this morning feeling like shit. I've drank about 6 multi-vitamin pills. In the past I've noticed that if I take a shit ton of vitamins the day I feel a cold coming on, I can beat the cold.

Besides drinking a bunch of liquids and vitamins, what do you do to relieve your cold?

[lostone303]

i eat some hot food like hot wings or smothered fries from chubbys and i drink a lot of cranberry juice

[john]

First and foremost I try to eat healthy as much as humanly possible. This keeps me ready to fight off anything which invades. Once the invasion has begun, more water than normal, and I add 20% to the supplements I regularly take.

[Dave_L]

I just take some vitamins and stuff. I'll also take dayquil/nyquil if I feel I'm getting sick.

[STIBungy]

Vitamin C.

[myshtern]

Would pooping more often do anything?
I'm thinking expel my body of all the junk I've been eating and shit like that?

[myshtern]

Vitamin C.

I've been popping vitamins like candy and I've already eaten 3 oranges today.

[STIBungy]

That's good. In addition to that. I usually dress warm, drink hot tea and fire up my humidifier at night.


I've been popping vitamins like candy and I've already eaten 3 oranges today.

[David]

More than one vitamin isn't going to help anything, your body can only take in so much. And keep in mind, you can OD on multivitamins.

[-=[Juztin]=-]

Vitamin N

[saabracr]

Lots of booze. Antiseptic bloodstream FTW.

[myshtern]

More than one vitamin isn't going to help anything, your body can only take in so much. And keep in mind, you can OD on multivitamins.

I disagree with that. If you take two vitamins in intervals of 3 hours I'm sure it will give you more nutrients than if you just took one in the morning. What would an overdose of vitamins do? I've taken a bunch before and I just go a little nauseas

[hatchbackgirl]

I drink a ton of OJ and lots of water too.

[David]

Of course you'll be getting more nutrients into your system, but its not going to benefit you. This is the same logic that sends thousands of people to the hospital because they think 10 Tylenol will help a headache better than 2. If your body could benefit from more than 100% a recommended dosage of a certain vitamin, then the FDA wouldn't have said that was the optimum dosage.

It'll just make your pee ungodly yellow, and if you took a whole bottle or something, it would piss off your liver and a couple other organs somethin fierce. Oranges are your friend Myshtern, not $1 a pill vitamins.

[TedR719]

Vitamin C
Sleep
Cold Medicine
Chicken Noodle Soup

[lswhitecivic]

Go to a healthfood store and go to the herbs/vitamin isle and get echinacea root pills. You have to make sure its the root though. Usually they're quite a bit more expensive than some of the other echinacea pills you will see that will say its aerial parts, which actually won't help at all.

[lswhitecivic]

I disagree with that. If you take two vitamins in intervals of 3 hours I'm sure it will give you more nutrients than if you just took one in the morning. What would an overdose of vitamins do? I've taken a bunch before and I just go a little nauseas

Yeah, but your body can only process so much of each vitamin at a time. Anything over that amount will just pass through and you will crap it out. Unless your taking really ungodly amounts of vitamins, you probably wouldn't run into problems with toxicity, however you could start feeling like you have a stomach ache like you've expressed, which in time could cause liver and kidney damage.

Really just read the label and don't take more than it says. All you'll be doing is wasting your money.

[Mario]

I do Vitamin C, (2 or 3 500mg tablets), Theraflu, dress warm, and EIGHT HOURS OF SLEEP. That is the absolute most important part, you can't fight a cold if you don't rest, that is when your body is strongest at fighting colds.

[chris_venturini]

i do a combination of what everyone here recommends, well, except what myshtern said, thats just dumb.

[Loud_Scott]

Lots of booze. Antiseptic bloodstream FTW.

:werd: nothing fites sickness like drunken blood cells.

[Tranquility]

Zinc.... and lots of sleep. I personally like the Cold Eze lozenges, One every couple of hours, you can buy them at any drug store. For me at least they cut down cold time by at least a few days.

[HondasTrail]

Here's the thing with vitamins,

C and B complex vitamins are water soluble, meaning they dissolve in water and they are easily removed from the body because they body is 70% water. Therefor you really can't OD on these vitamins because they aren't stored in the body. If a large quantity is taken the excess is filtered out by the kidneys and sent to the bladder.

Vitamins A, D, E, and K are known as fat soluble vitamins, and they dissolve in fat before entering the blood stream. Any excess vitamin is stored in the liver. The liver can handle storing minute amounts of these vitamins, but storing too much of these vitamins intoxicates the liver. When this happens the liver fails to work correctly and then you die (duh).

There is nothing really proven to beat a cold other than rest and plenty of hydrating fluids like water, natural juices that contain no added sugar, and a well balanced diet.

I have my own theory though, What I usually do is take it easy for a day or two and drink 10-12 cups of water a day. Then I become active again and go for a 1-2 hour sweat pouring work out that includes a lot of cardio. I also up my water intake to 12-14 cups during this period.

Water thins the blood and makes it easier for the white blood cells to get to the infection. The respite helps white blood cells develop. The intense work out creates heat which kills some types of viruses, protozoans, etc. The cardio also delivers the blood to the kidneys which act as a filtration device and thus filters out all the bad stuff, puts it in your urine, and then sends it out the dragon. That gives my reasoning behind my theory and getting rid of a cold.

It should also be mentioned that as of right now, I'm really bored.

And I just realized how old this thread really is +1

[V8SpankR]

As soon as I even feel like a cold is coming on or if I've been around a person with a cold I start using Zicam mist spray about 3 times a day and I've avoided at least three colds in the last 5 months. I can't stand the nasal q-tip Zicam but the spray seems to work for me.

[slowfocusguy]

Great we went from killing your own liver to hyperhydration.

The best thing to do when you have a cold is to rest, eat healthy, and drink water. Honestly there's no reason to overdose on pills or give yourself water poisoning.

I mean lets be real. The worst part of a cold is when you wake up feeling like shit. But as soon as you push yourself to get moving, your cold would be the last thing on your mind.

A balance healthy diet is all you need to get all the vitamins you need. This is why trend diets are so stupid. "Eat nothing but this for 6 months!" is just asking for trouble. The body was design to digest a large variety of foods, but because of that the body needs a large variety of foods in order to maintain optimal operations.

[myshtern]

A bunch of vitamins and loads of water actually work really well for me.

[HondasTrail]

Great we went from killing your own liver to hyperhydration.

The best thing to do when you have a cold is to rest, eat healthy, and drink water. Honestly there's no reason to overdose on pills or give yourself water poisoning.

I mean lets be real. The worst part of a cold is when you wake up feeling like shit. But as soon as you push yourself to get moving, your cold would be the last thing on your mind.

A balance healthy diet is all you need to get all the vitamins you need. This is why trend diets are so stupid. "Eat nothing but this for 6 months!" is just asking for trouble. The body was design to digest a large variety of foods, but because of that the body needs a large variety of foods in order to maintain optimal operations.

12-14 glasses of water is not going to kill you. It's damn near impossible to drink so much water that it kills you. The only way you're going to kill yourself from over hydration is by literally hooking your self up intravenously. BTW the recommended water intake is 8-10 glasses.

And if you were paying attention I mentioned the facts about the negative effects of too many vitamins.

[myshtern]

I think that for normal people, unless you're on extacy or something, you would throw up long before you would even come close to hurting yourself from drinking too much water.

[HondasTrail]

I think that for normal people, unless you're on extacy or something, you would throw up long before you would even come close to hurting yourself from drinking too much water.

You're pretty much right on with this. There are 4 cases in which you can drink too much water: 1. being an infant 2. Being a marathon runner 3. Being on drugs 4. Being incredibly stupid.

An infant can suffer from Hyponatremia because it lacks the will power to feed it self and its bodily functions/protections are still weak so it can't upchuck the excess. Marathon runners can suffer to because the body shuts off the protection and signals so it can rehydrate itself. Being on drugs makes people lose bodily functions. Finally #4, I will use an analogy for this one. Try holding your breath as long as you can. Normally if you hold your breath too long you will just start breathing again because it is hard for the body to ignore the signal to breathe. There are a few people in this world that can ignore that signal completely. If they continue to hold their breath then they will eventually pass out and the body will start breathing on its own. These are both defense mechanisms for the preservation of life. Unfortunately for Hyponatremia there is no back up protection such as blacking out. There is only two defenses for over Hyponatremia and that is the satisfaction of quenching thirst and then blowing chunks all over the place. A few, not many can ignore both these signals, thus resulting in death.

And another thing, it's not how much you drink. It's how fast you drink it.

[David]

So don't take extacy when you're on a cold? Gotcha

[royalworks]

Yeah I am sick right now. I thought it was just from work (i do autobody work and its dusty) but then I got home from work yesterday and couldn't quit coughing and after a while my chest felt like someone punched me about 6 times. And ever time I cough it hurts real bad.

[royalworks]

You're pretty much right on with this. There are 4 cases in which you can drink too much water: 1. being an infant 2. Being a marathon runner 3. Being on drugs 4. Being incredibly stupid.

An infant can suffer from Hyponatremia because it lacks the will power to feed it self and its bodily functions/protections are still weak so it can't upchuck the excess. Marathon runners can suffer to because the body shuts off the protection and signals so it can rehydrate itself. Being on drugs makes people lose bodily functions. Finally #4, I will use an analogy for this one. Try holding your breath as long as you can. Normally if you hold your breath too long you will just start breathing again because it is hard for the body to ignore the signal to breathe. There are a few people in this world that can ignore that signal completely. If they continue to hold their breath then they will eventually pass out and the body will start breathing on its own. These are both defense mechanisms for the preservation of life. Unfortunately for Hyponatremia there is no back up protection such as blacking out. There is only two defenses for over Hyponatremia and that is the satisfaction of quenching thirst and then blowing chunks all over the place. A few, not many can ignore both these signals, thus resulting in death.

And another thing, it's not how much you drink. It's how fast you drink it.

HAHA! My friend and I thought that we could drink a gallon of water once but unlike milk its really thin and we got to about 3/4 of a gallon and felt like shit. Our bodies didn't want to upchuck it so we had to gag ourselves. I think is we kept on going we would have finished the water or puked it up but it hurt to much.

[myshtern]

Yeah I am sick right now. I thought it was just from work (i do autobody work and its dusty) but then I got home from work yesterday and couldn't quit coughing and after a while my chest felt like someone punched me about 6 times. And ever time I cough it hurts real bad.

Ehh, you know the Romans invented breathing mouth thingies for this purpose?

[B20badboy]

Get Emergen-C and Cold Snap take a few cold snaps every few hours for a day and drink like 5+ Emergen-C's that works for me. They have that stuff called Ziacam but the spray, lozengers taste like absolute shit. The nose spray I havent tried yet.

[nxbrennan]

+1 on everything else, but I also find DanActives to be really helpful. They're probiotic dairy supplements, and if I drink 2 the first day I feel sick and one per for the next 2 days whatever I've got is almost always gone.

[hatchbackgirl]

I took my Emergen-C all last week and I think I'm going to avoid getting the crap thats going around at work... I'm gonna keep taking them along with my vitamins and lots of water too.

[Mark_H]

Last week I felt a little cold coming on and tried Zicam. I used the little tablets that you let disolve in your mouth. I doubled the suggested dosage and honeslty I avoided the cold all together. I felt fine about 24 hours after I started taking it. In the past I tried the Zicam mist stuff you put up your nose and it didn't do a damn thing for me.
Mark