A Surefire Cure For Common Cold

At the very outset, I would like to state that I am not a doctor. But common cold is not something you need to go to a doctor for. It is just plain common sense that cold infections come and go. You do not have to CURE it!

CAUTION: This article is about common cold as a solitary ailment. It does not intend to cover situations where cold is one of many symptoms of a bigger medical issue.

Common cold is a natural ailment that affects most mammals. It requires only palliative (symptomatic) treatment, not curative. When people go to doctor with a cold, they put the MBBS guy under undue pressure to prove that he is really worth his degree. So, he prescribes antibiotics.

Antibiotics then becomes part of the problem, not the cure. When antibiotics are prescribed, then the patient needs to complete the entire course. Many people stop the course shortly after they start feeling better. This leaves the germs weakened but not eliminated. They also gain resistance to the antibiotics that were prescribed. Inevitably, cold comes back with a vengeance and needs a stronger course or a different class of antibiotics.

Common cold should be left to run its course. Your body will naturally fight off the infection in a few days or at most a week. In the process, your immune system will reinforces it defences. Your next attack of cold is much farther away in future than when you use antibiotics. If you have a busy lifestyle and think that you do not have the time palliative cure, you will only be fooling yourself.

Palliative cure is particularly important for small children. Pussified parents rush their kids to the doctor at the first sign of cold. Many parents have kids only to win the esteem of others. It is only after the kids are born that they realize that taking care of a kid is a lot of work. Either they can't afford to lose their sleep or they do not realise that the kid needs to fight the infection on its own. For them, cold is the problem for the doctor to cure for he is a magician. Kids who are routinely put on antibiotics for cold-related symptoms grow up with weak immune systems. For drug companies, these people are worth their weight in gold. Penicillin that the doctors prescribe should be used to fight more severe infections. By using them for a simple ailment like cold, its efficacy is reduced.

Palliative Treatment For Cold

• Take regular sips of boiled water (Water should be near body temperature. You do not have to drink an entire glass of water each time.)
• Wash your nostrils with saline four to six times a day.
• Chew a hard-boiled candy to keep your throat moist.
• Gargle with saline three to four times a day.
• Sleep without the fan or AC.
• Avoid exposure to dust, smoke, fumes and other allergents. Use fresh clean clothing/bedding.
• Take simple non-spicy food.
• FOR ADULTS ONLY: If you have fever, sleep under a woollen blanket - head covered. Initially, you will be sweating. Afterwards, you will be shivering because of the sweat. Let this go on for the entire night. In the morning, the fever will be gone.
• FOR ADULTS ONLY: If you have a persistent dry cough and no other cold symptoms, then it may be caused by acidity - acid vapors rising from your stomach and landing on your throat. If this is case, chew a handful of baked channa dal (the kind that you put in coconut chutney) three times a day. This will soak up the acid and allow your throat to heal.
• FOR CHILDREN & EVEN ADULTS: Boil leaves of Tulsi and Indian Borage (Karpooravalli in Tamil and Kannikoorka in Malayalam), filter it and add some honey. Let it cool down to body temperature and give to the kid. This should fix the cough.

Surefire Cure for Common Cold

• Nilavembu is a medicine that was provided to school students in Tamil Nadu when there were reports of chikungunya, dengue fever and other ailments spreading. This medicine is extremely powerful. You need to use just a pinch of it in water when you boil drinking water. This water is designed against such serious ailments but it also acts as a miracle cold cure and cold-preventing medicine. After I used it for a few times, I stopped getting colds. I have not had a cold for over three years now. I have a severe deviated nasal septum, which makes cold infections extremely uncomfortable. For two decades, I used to go down with three or four cold infections per year. A common cold is not bad thing. It usually cleans out the dust in the lungs so I am disappointed that I have not had a cold for so long. Hence, use very small amounts of nilavembu in your water if you want to cure cold. Nilavembu is available in traditional medicine shops (nattu marundhu kadais) as a dried herb form or as a coarse powder. You do not have to take nilavembu water (nilavembu kudineer) every day, unless you live in an area where the disease is running wild.