Treating a cold

I hate going to the doctor, particularly for an illness like a cold that normally falls short of needing prescription medication. One thing I do on my own is to take some vitamin D3 when I first feel cold symptoms coming on. It's a powerful immune system booster, even better than vit C. You can take up to 50,000 IU per day for a few days, or, better yet, get out in the sun, provided it's not winter or overcast.

Another important thing to do is to stay hydrated. With a runny nose and coughing up lots of phlegm, it's easy to get dehydrated. Water will help keep the mucus thin, which in turn helps prevent stagnation and infection.

For a sore throat, I've also found zinc lozenges to be effective about half the time.

[[MORE]]I think it's a good idea to limit physical activity when you're sick. When your body is working hard to fight off an infection, the last thing it needs is to have to divert resources to repairing systems that may have been slightly damaged (as muscles are when heavily loaded), or to dispose of any extra waste products that were generated during the associated metabolic processes. For the latter reason, I don't over-eat while I'm sick. Limiting activity doesn't necessarily mean bed rest, though. It seems like some movement to keep the lymph system active would also be a good idea (since lymph fluid doesn't have a pump of its own, and so is only moved around by physical activity).

I'm also very skeptical about treating fevers, unless they get high enough that they might damage the brain (105+). Fevers are one of the body's natural ways of killing the invaders; why would you want to suppress that?