Good medicine for sore thought and bad cough...?

Question

I've had a bad cold for about 5 days; I've gone though like, five stages of different kinds of symptoms each day. The past couple of days I've had a bad cough and sore though, any suggestions for cough medicine or cough drops, etc...

Answer 1

If you don't have a fever, you do NOT need to see a doctor or take antibiotics. If your sore throat gets worse AND/OR is accompanied by a fever, then you need a strep test, but without a fever just hot water and honey+lemon should soothe your throat also GREAT are salt water gargles (2 or 3 times a day) till sore throat is gone.

Answer 2

I've found the best thing is to use as many of the cough-drop-type Vitamin C lozenges as the dosage directions allow. I don't know if its the sugar in them or the vitamin C, but I have seen results by using just those (for the sore throat). Cough medicine will probably "kill" your throat if you use it.

I'm not sure its ever been proven that cough medicines do much, although I'm guessing you would want an expectorant to bring up stuff. I always just use the menthol/eucalyptis cough drops - honey and lemon.

Tea with honey may smooth out a scratchy throat for a little while.

I don't know if you take aspirin or not, but I find that it seems to help things you wouldn't think it would help because its an anti-inflammatory and analgesic. It may help the throat a little.

Spicy Asian soup found the grocery store's International aisle and in styrofoam bowls that you heat in the microwave are amazingly good at clearing the sinuses - although its obviously not what they're aimed at doing.

Drink extra orange juice because it may help your immune system (or may not)but it is always a good thing to drink anyway; and who knows....

Answer 3

The best stuff that you can get over the counter for a sore throat that I've found is Chloroseptic. It's a spray. You spray it in the back of your throat and it numbs it. It doesn't taste that great (been a few years since I've used it, so there might be different flavors now) but it really helps.

For the cough, if you have a lot of mucus in your lungs that's hard to break up, try Mucinex. It is an expectorant that is used to break up the mucus and help it to come up when you cough. It used to be prescription but was recently approved for over the counter use. The physicians I work for constantly recommend it. If you have a dry, hacking cough without much mucus, then you need something that has a cough suppressant in it like Robitussin Cough and Cold CF, which also has a decongestant and expectorant in it too.

Answer 4

If you don't have the alcoholic gene, try blackberry brandy. If you do, don't. It will sooth your cough and open up your sinuses so you can sleep.

A little honey will sooth your throat, too. There's a medical reason for using honey. It not only soothes your throat and clings a bit to the sore spots, it breaks down to hydrogen peroxide and actually kills the bacteria causing the problem there.

There's also a medical reason for chicken soup. Researchers found out about ten years ago that an enzyme in chicken soup is also there in most asthma medications. It really does ease your breathing. Grandma was right.

Answer 5

colds are viral and therefore, antibiotics will not help treat them. they take about 7-14 days to run their course.

however, for the sore throat-if you develop a fever of 101.5 or higher, have white patches on the back of your throat, or have severe pain so bad that you are not able to swallow anything-then chances are pretty high that you have strep and that WILL need antibiotics to treat it. so if you have any of the above symptoms-make an appt asap to see your dr or go to the nearest urgent care.

you can try drinking warm tea with honey (i like peppermint best when i'm sick),sucking on ice or hard candies, and/or gargling with salt water (2 tsp of salt to 8 oz of water) to soothe the sore throat. chloraseptic spray works too but doesn't last too long. you can also take ibuprofen-it has an anti-inflammatory in it to help reduce swelling along with reducing pain. take 200-400mg every 6 hours but no more than 1200mg in 24 hours.

for the cough-if you are coughing up large amounts of sputum constantly and it's either green or brown in color-you will probably need antibiotics for this-the color indicates sign of infection (usually bronchitis or upper respiratory infection). if you are having difficulty breathing-get to the emergency room. if you are congested, and are only coughing stuff up occasionally or the cough is dry, there is an over the counter medicine called Mucinex that works great for loosing up congestion and helping you to cough it up. you can also try robutessin DM which helps to also loosen congestion.

if you don't have congestion, you can use just regular robutessin or vicks 44 cough syrup.

put a warm mist humidifier in your room at night while you sleep. this will help keep moisture in the air, soothing your sore throat and help to keep your cough quiet. make sure to wash it out about every 48 hours. don't use the cold mist humidifier-this will irritate your throat.

drink plenty of fluids to keep yourself hydrated and help flush out the cold.

good luck and i hope you feel better

Answer 6

gargle with warm salt water 4 times a day,it will help the sore throat and for the cough, you need to clear your lungs so use the old method of steam. boil some water, get a towel and cover your head over the water. now plz be careful, it is HOT water. breathe normally until water is warm. if it persists much longer, go the the doc.

Answer 7

I'm a medicine student and currenly taking a class about cough and infections like the flu, If I can make a little test in my book on on u of 10 questions I'll be able to tell u what to take so your cough goes away.
Let me know, my msn is
[e-mail] or
[e-mail]

Answer 8

sore thought good medicine is strepsil and u can use warm water with salt then u sip 4 ur thought don't swallow the water.
4 bad cough use honey with warm water and lemon,

Answer 9

Try Owbridges cough syrup for your sore THOUGH

Answer 10

I know this sounds bad but if you can hack it, great!
Drink a cup of warm beer and then take two aspirin and crawl to bed. This will sweat it out of you body.
If it doesn't work and it still persist, then by all means go see your doctor.