Quick! I need a small thing: a cure for the common cold

OK, fine, I'll settle for your best 24-hour remedies to make life a bit more tolerable. I'm not looking for much, just enough to make me not want to plunge my fist through a wall as I stare at the ceiling at night with a scratchy throat, aches, stupid cough and stuffed nose.

Worse, we fly to NYC tomorrow to see our kid in a holiday show at a regional theatre. That should be everything we ever wanted. Yet I woke up in the middle of Tuesday night with a raging cold and the forecast for NYC this weekend is fucking outrageous.

So, yeah, at my wits end and angry at the world. Any home remedies? Maybe RFK Jr. will have cure by tomorrow morning...

 

I don't know about "cure" but when I get sick, I get the knockoff (CVS or Walgreens) version of NyQuil nighttime sever cold and flu medicine in a bottle. Take a couple of pulls of whiskey then a dose of that stuff, and you'll sleep well.

 

Some throat lozenges, a couple of aspirin and some rest. Add Robitussin DM in severe cases – make sure that if you take aspirin that both won't cause the wrong sort of chemical cocktail – and sleep.

Good luck.

 

I'll give the best Army advice I can. Drink water and take 800MG Ibuprofen.

 

A common cold I'll just typically ride out, but then again I don't get the symptoms you're describing other than a stuffy nose and if it's bad, a cough. Lots of OJ or citric acid will help. I would reconsider ibuprofen unless you're in real pain. Large amounts aren't good for your liver.

 

Second on the orange juice.

If you have access to really spicy ginger ale, I’ve found that drinking it sometimes helps cut through the sinus crud. Failing that, maybe an order of hot wings.

 

Sleep.

I try riding NyQuil/DayQuil and tea. I try breathing cold air. I try the toddies.

But when I get good sleep where I can either nap on the regular or just stay in bed for 10 hours, I feel the most human (and NyQuil to help in that sleep).

As far as quick, my stepmom swears by vitamin C bombs (airborne or emergen-C)

 

Also, it's never been easier to hydrate. There are a ton of rapid hydration products out there ... adult pedialyte and such ... that really help speed up the process. I know when I was laid up with food poisoning and had some cold symptoms to boot, Gatorade's high-level hydration product helped a ton.

 

I swear to goodness, our ship's doctor had a brother or cousin who was a Motrin salesman or something.
"You have a broken femur and sucking chest wound, take some Motrin."
"Good morning, Doc." walking past sick bay. "Take some Motrin."

 

A shot of bourbon, the juice of half a lemon, and honey to taste in a coffee cup. Add hot water to make a hot toddy. Good for what ails you.

Alternatively, make up a batch in a mason jar without the hot water and dose yourself with an ice tea spoon as necessary.