What do you do when you have a cold and can't take medicine?
from celeste@kbin.earth to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 16 Nov 2025 19:55
https://kbin.earth/m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world/t/2159335
from celeste@kbin.earth to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 16 Nov 2025 19:55
https://kbin.earth/m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world/t/2159335
I can’t take a lot of cold medicines, but I wish I was unconscious right now.
What makes you feel better in this situation? Hot showers? Whiskey? Soup? Watching that comfort movie your mom put on when you were a kid?
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Cream of chicken soup
Hot toddies to ease the sore throat.
Which drugs can’t you take??
I read hot tiddies to ease the sore throat and was so confused
that too, why not
They might distract me!
Alcohol wouldnt?
That would make me feel better!
Cough suppressants and nasal decongestants, apparently? I can take antihistamines but I try to avoid them.
Hm, I do have whiskey, but I wonder if I still have honey left?
I love a good hot toddy, but alcohol is poison so I’d advise against drinking much until you’re better.
Hot and Sour soup always makes me feel better.
That sounds amazing
Let the body rest. Strictly.
Keep your feet warm at all times.
Drink lots of warm (or hot) tea all day long.
Alcohol is allowed (but remember, it is a drug) only once per day, right before sleep time, and only a small dose.
Oh, duh, I even have an electric kettle and I've just been staring into space and sipping soda. I must be really out of it.
Three consecutive bong hits.
I should keep a pack of weed gummies on hand and keep them in a nyquil box for times like these
Videogames and naps
Get a lot of tissues if your nose is running. Sometimes I will lay down and listen to a podcast, other times I might try to do something at my desk.
Hope you feel better, OP.
Drink a gallon of water and go back to bed.
and then get up 20 minutes later to pee…
your life is very different than mine
what
Um, I hope you don’t mean that literally. A gallon of water is 3.79 liters.
Over the day, not all at once!
For me what always worked is, drinking tea (usually cranberry tea), eat warm soup take hot shower and sleep. I never take any medications for this. so just drink water and tea, eat and sleep.
I remember reading an article years ago about how little good cold medicines actually do against the illness, so I'd already been mostly avoiding them. Except when I'm too congested or coughing too much to sleep. Then I miss them SO much.
Idk about medicine, but also eat vitamin C rich fruits like oranges and similar they also are very helpful.
Kratom.
If I’m sick as a fucking dog I’ll take some kratom. Bass boom bass bing I feel infinitely better. It’s relatively energizing at lower dosss, more sedating at higher does (though I can’t sleep on the stuff, so I’ll only take it up to about 6 hours before bedtime).
It takes quite a while and huge fucking doses for dependence to build up, so I stop taking it when I’m not sick anymore.
Really? Haven’t heard that it works for colds lol. I take it for a little boost during the day…I feel like it would make it harder to relax on it.
A good green or maeng da will be more sedating.
It still does give you a bit of a boost but if you’re sick that’s kind of what you want, no? To not feel like death and be somewhat functional?
Anyway YMMV
I just saw a video the other day about some guy who got seriously addicted to that stuff.
He started out as an occasional user and even set a “never two days in a row” rule for himself, until he broke it. It fucked him up bad. Do be careful.
I was dependent on it once, and took about a kilo and a half a month.
The shit does not fuck you up in the slightest. The downsides: enormous monster shits that clogged every toilet I took a shit in. I woke up after sleeping for four hours and had to take some more kratom. I was a little dozy.
Pros: didn’t eat as much. The depression I’d suffered at the time was gone. I was able to keep up a daily exercise regiment and strict diet for almost a year. My add symptoms were pretty much gone. My back pain was nonexistent. I was genuinely content, like all the time.
Neutral: no sex drive at all.
When I decided to get off it I just titrated over two months. The process sucked but I’ve gone through worse shit.
I’ve done it shitloads of time since then, and given that the withdrawals sucked have never had an issue with doing large amounts for multiple days in a row. I don’t want to.
The shit helped me through a very tough time in my life, caused no long lasting physical side effects, left me with a physique I’d wanted my whole life, a good job, and mostly positive things to say about the experience.
I wouldn’t do it again mainly just because it’s so fucking inconvenient having to drink green sludge every four hours, but.
Oh no. The horror. What a hell my life became on kratom, ahhhhhh
That kind of sounds like it fucked you up. Glad to hear you’re doing better.
Sure. If you’re illiterate I guess it does.
Well it’s essentially just herbal opioids, so yeah, it will make you dependent then you can ease that dependence by getting even a harder dependence from like Oxy or fentanyl.
This is the actively ingredient in kratom: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitragynine
Link to the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLObpcBR2yw
Yeah, that’s the one!
Hot, steamy showers. Warm blankets. Soup for your throat.
Yes to nostalgic comfort movies! Plus hot salty soup, ginger ale and, why not, saltines. All the nostalgic sick stuff. :P
Orange Juice and Chicken Soup.
I never take medicine for a cold; they don’t help cure it, they just alleviate symptoms and in my experience, not well enough to bother wasting money on it.
Hot showers (for steam), spicy food, pine-orange juice.
Oh, pineapple! Whew. I was like "i don't think pine and orange would mesh well...but if I feel really sick..."
Spicy food does sound like a good idea!
Haha, yeah. I read once that pineapple juice is better for colds than orange juice. No idea if it’s actually true so I hedge my bets by having both.
I take 3 grams of vitamin C, some ibuprofen and zinc for the first symptoms, that often helps. If I get properly sick I drink plenty of ginger & lemon tea and eat berries and something easy like porridge. What helps a lot is rinsing the nasal cavity with warm salt water several times a day, I don’t have a netipot so I just use a drinking bottle or something similar.
please be sure to use distilled water for this and not regular tap water.
arstechnica.com/…/death-by-neti-pot-why-you-shoul…
Sleep. A lot of water. Alcohol makes it much worse, don’t do that. Try to hibernate for as long as possible basically. Spicy soup will help clear the sinuses.
Yeah, I know any sleep I get with the booze, it won't really help. I wish I didn't know that, though. A hot toddy sounds nice, but...ah, well.
Lots of blankets/heat. Sweat it out.
I have the best/worst fever dreams.
when I got covid the first time I had a fever dream last three days. in those three days I watched myself die and be reborn at least 100 times.
fucked me up for a long time, I didn’t want to get out of bed at all because death was so fucking amazing and I just wanted it all to end.
fun times.
The first sleep paralysis episode I had I was convinced the whole time I had died and was in this weird ghost zone where I could hear people and see a bit, but couldn't move. Fucked me up, too, though in my case I was scared of sleeping for a while. It doesn't sound as bad as your experience, though, damn.
Lots of hot liquids. my grandma picks linden blossoms during July, dries them and gives me for the winter colds. I’ve learnt that it contains natural compounds that makes your body sweat like crazy which is a good thing when you are sick.
also thyme, daisy, rasperry leaf teas
Probably double check with your doctor before drinking alcohol if you’re not allowed to take other drugs, as alcohol is also a drug.
I’d recommend soup and other hot drinks like tea or hot water with honey and lemon.
Also gargling salt water or iodine gargle or mouthwash can help a lot if you have a sore throat, or even better is sore throat spray with topical anti-inflammation such as Benzydamine, but I guess maybe check that with your doctor too 🤷
I think it's an NSAID? That's a "use with caution" situation, then. The salt water gargle is something I forgot about. I'm glad I posted this question. It's reminding me of all the stuff that's helped before in case the coughing gets worse.
For symptoms:
Mom made me a shot of whiskey, honey and lemon juice as a child. (We did not drink in my household. Ever.) Works a charm.
My wife makes me hover over a steaming bowl of salt water, towel over head. Does seem to work well. Can’t hurt to expand your lungs with the heat and get some salt air in there, right? A trip to the beach, especially in the water, cures a great many ills.
The cure:
What breaks my fever is curling up in bed under a ton of blankets and knocking myself out. When I get to dreaming heavily I’ll wake up soaked in sweat. Not mildly moist, I mean to say soaking wet, really gross, have to get up and towel off. That’s how I know I’m on the other side and getting better.
Not sure what constitutes cold medicin. I use over the counter pain killers that reduce fever. Plenty of water and sleep. Any activity that gets the blood pumping. Just for a little bit, makes me better for the rest of the day. I avoid decongestants unless I can’t sleep. The more rarely they are used, the more effective and lasting they are.
The only medicine I take is medical cannabis. Obviously if I was fucked up or whatever I’d take Babylon medicines but cannabis is the cure for what ails you probably 85% of the time
Hot tea with honey (there are plenty of herbs that will help like chamomile). Slowly sucking on a spoonful of honey also helps with a sore throat. I also find it helps to move from the bed to the couch because I’ll get sick of the bed and the bedroom and being in the livingroom changes things up. Also hot showers and changing the pyjama. Just anything that makes me feel like I’m not marinating in my bed 24/7.