Vicks, Vitamin C, anti-viral tissues, lots of water, ...

15 Sep 2008
It's that time of year again: I have a cold. It started last friday evening and became a fullblown annoyance at the wedding party on saturday.

I blame my lack of sports the last months and am now motivated again to go out and work on my physical condition. But that has to wait untill I'm cured.

Wikipedia says the following about a cure for the common cold

As there is no medically proven and accepted medication directly targeting the causative agent,
there is no cure for the common cold. Treatment is limited to symptomatic supportive options,
maximizing the comfort of the patient, and limiting complications and harmful sequelae.

There is no cure. fail :( Because I have nothing better to do at the moment, I will try to keep track of the development of my symptoms so that next time I will be able to guesstimate what phase of the illness I'm in.

Friday sept 12
My throat became a little sore in the evening. At first I thought I was thursty but after drinking a lot of water, my throat was still sore.

Saturday sept 13
I woke up with a swollen throat and swallowing was painful. During the afternoon my nose became congested without running. Because of this I started getting a slight headache. In the evening, I noticed that my sore throat had mostly vanished.

Sunday sept 14
Went to bed around 3am, woke up again around 5.30. I was annoyed at myself for not being able to breathe properly and sleep well. I was in some weird mental state, half awake and half asleep where nothing made sense. I've been in this state of mind before and it is absolutely not to be enjoyed. I went back to sleep and got up around 9. The trip home was pretty uneventful (illness-wise).

Around 1PM, my nose was starting to run a little. I went to a store and bought a small box of vicks (cherry) and 2 bags of vicks with eucalyptus. The eucalyptus vicks sucks ;) It tastes horrible and I prefer not to have to take it.

By 5 or 6PM, I was feeling miserable and decided to lay down a bit because I thought I was sleepy. Again my running nose and nasal congestion mad it hard to breathe and I had difficulty falling asleep. Around 8PM, I got up again feeling less miserable and completely awake.

I decided to combat the illness in full force. I ate 2 apples for the vitamins and drank 3 big mugs of tea with a lot of sugar in them (it has helped my before). I also noticed that my hearing faded a bit.

Monday sept 15
Woke up with nasal congestion and running nose. Went to the store and bought 2 big bags of fruitflavored vicks with vitamin C, 3 oranges, 24 pocketsize bags of tissues and 2 boxes of kleenex antiviral tissues.
I'm starting to sneeze and cough, and also seem to have some kind of stomach flu.

Tuesday sept 16
My nose is clear and no longer running. The coughing got worse and the stomach flu turned into stomach pain. I'm definitely not 100% OK yet, but I feel like the worst part is over.

Wednesday sept 17
The stomach pain is completely gone and my coughing has lessened. I cough up a lot of slimes, but thats better than only coughing up my lungs.

Thursday sept 18
I think I'm completely cured! For the first time since sunday, I had some appetite again and enjoyed my food. I'm starting to notice a lot more sick people around me and I wish them well :)