Is there no cure for the common cold

Prevention is better than cure and you’ve had your flu shot, your vitamin D and C have run all winter. You even started eating tomato salad once in a while. But now it’s too late, and as you lie there in bed with your cup of tea and box of tissues. You may be wondering what to do to help yourself get better. You know that this cold* could last anything from 4-10 days so what can you do to improve the chances of a complete recovery as early on as possible.

The best place to start is to employ mind over matter tactics, this is going to take time, so a good book or a homework plan is going to be required. The illness might well keep you at home for a week so let your employer or your colleagues or your teacher know that they may need to get help in. Unless you’re the crew on the International Space Station, you are probably replaceable for a couple of days or more. If you believe otherwise perhaps Mark Yardborough’s Burnout (Give ’em the finger) was written for you.

So you’ve called the workplace, and they feel sorry for you but they’re happy too. Not because they don’t love you or miss your jokes, but because you didn’t come and sneeze on the keyboard or cough on the coffee cups. You feel bad calling up work but actually you’re in good company and you’ve done everyone a favour by not coming in – over 1 million working days are lost each year due to the common cold in Canada alone. How we manage to lose a million days of work in a year which has only 365 days is a question for maths students to figure out. The next step is to stock up on cold remedies.

Although it has fallen from favour as a long term treatment for pain, Plain Tylenol is my preferred treatment for the cold – make sure you take a sufficient dose, and check that it doesn’t contain caffeine- a favourite additive which assists Tylenol absorption but may keep you up at night staring at the ceiling wondering why you can’t fall asleep. Ibuprofen and naproxen do offer improved symptom control, but side effects are more frequent particularly acid reflux, worsening of asthma and high blood pressure. The drenching night sweats caused by ibuprofen are interesting because they occasionally mimic a more serious infection such as pneumonia.

There is only one drug I insist upon in managing the common cold. Although it is a prescription medicine, a nasal steroid spray should be started early on to prevent sinusitis. Although it can cause nosebleeds if not sprayed correctly, prompt use of nasal steroid is safe and remains the best proven method to prevent sinusitis. If you’re from the alternative school of natural remedies, the best method is by filling a basin with hot water with eucalyptus oil and inhaling the vapour – don’t let anyone see you do this as it could seriously damage your street credibility.

Another good way is to take a dishcloth and soak it in vodka. Then lie back and place the cloth on your chest while your friends and family finish the vodka. Even if this has no proven effect on the precise duration of the cold does have the advantage of providing an excellent night’s entertainment. It also has the fabulous effect of making sure that nobody goes to work in the morning to wonder why you’re not there. It also renders your entire family much, much more sick than you are, which leaves zero room for self pity, a common psychological pitfall of the common cold.

During the cold it appears keeping warm helps recovery. Although not well studied it does seem that hot drinks and wrapping up well is a good way to clear a cold. For the record, I did meet a 96 year old woman in Scotland once, she swore that if she tied a damp tennis sock around her neck at night the cold would be gone by the morning. I confess, I was so convinced by this old wife’s tale, that I tried it once for myself, needless to say it failed.

Perhaps the most useful guide to the common cold is the ‘7 day cold rule’ which I you will not find anywhere on Google, Wikipedia or WebMD. The rule applies to everyone with a functioning immune system and not taking immunomodulator or immunosuppressant therapy.

The cold leaves by the 7th day,
The hottest it gets is 38
The hardest days are 3 and 4,
If it’s something else it’s something more…

That is to say, if it doesn’t fit the pattern it’s probably not the common cold and you should probably be calling upon your doctor.

The diagram represents the typical progression of the cold. If the pattern is broken either by a more rapid onset, a greater temperature peak or a prolonged descent this should cause concern.

In particular a recovering cold which suddenly bounces back should be treated as a bacterial infection. If you have an impaired immune system, have travelled recently to a hot country or if your immunizations have been allowed to lapse, you should be extra cautious.

Finally, your temperature drops back down to around 37, you’ve got your appetite and you’ve finished your homework and your Burnout book and maybe you even feel it’s time to go to work once more. Sadly, you are not out of the woods yet. The healthy immune system may take as long as 6 weeks to replenish the lymphocytes lost to a viral infection. That means be careful, eat fresh citrus fruit and vegetables, start your exercise routine gently and try not to get sick again.

*cold is a broad-reaching term to describe almost any upper respiratory tract infection of viral origin. It’s use predates modern medicine and may reach back as far as the Middle Ages when traditional healers noticed that cold weather was coupled by spread of disease. It is interesting that viral replication is often faster at cooler temperatures, favouring 35°C while the immune system works best at 38°C. Yet, the reason for the problem is more complicated than that. Dietary changes in winter and a simultaneous drop in Vitamin D levels cause a drop in individual immunity. Additionally, the cold weather results in closed windows, recycling of air in homes and cars, and also brings people into close proximity as they spend less time outdoors.
It seems hard to believe, but in my work as a country practitioner I met many farmers, fishermen and foresters who despite working in extreme weather conditions year after year, never once suffered a cold. The common cold is a disease of cities where population congestion is high and viruses are free to jump from person to person.