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See Dr Morton’s fight coughs, colds and flu treat sore throat unblock ears, nose and sinuses and recover from bronchitis and pneumonia
Well into the onslaught of a cold and damp winter, every chemist in the land is stocked to the rafters with cold remedies. But there is a bewildering array of products to choose from and when you are feeling poorly, the choice of which medication should you take, whether you should buy branded or the much cheaper shop’s own versions can be rather overwhelming.
So we at Dr Morton’s have decided to help you find a way through the minefield of drugs and prices to enable you to be feel fully informed when you next have to stumble into a chemist to stock up on cold remedies.
There are six main drugs that are available to help you limp through colds and flu. All of the branded products use these six ‘ingredients’ in different combinations and amounts and it is helpful to know just what these active ingredients do.
Many flu and cold remedies contain paracetamol. Paracetamol (commonly misspelt as paracetimol) acts as a pain killer and there is strong evidence that it can help bring down a fever, although this remains disputed by some people. It is safe for adults to take up to 1000 mg every 4 hours, with up to 4 doses a day. Paracetamol is useful for colds, headaches, fevers and coughs.
See Dr Morton’s paracetamol – when does 1 + 1 equal 3?
Cold viruses replicate in the cells lining the upper respiratory tract, and in most cases the symptoms are caused by the immune response to the virus. This immune response causes inflammation, swelling and makes the capillaries in the nose become ‘leaky’. Most flu and cold remedies contain phenylephrine which works by causing the blood vessels in the nose to constrict, thus reducing the feeling of being ‘bunged up’ and stopping the amount of fluid leaking out of damaged capillaries – in other words a runny nose. Phenylephrine is good for bunged up noses but shouldn’t be used for anything else (interesting to note that the old drug used was pseudoephedrine, but this was phased out because it is used to manufacture the illegal drug methamphetamine).
This is used for the treatment of coughs. It helps to clear the chest by loosening and thinning secretions so that they can be coughed up more easily. There are tiny hairs called cilia in your lungs and windpipe which all beat together to move secretions up and out of your lungs where they can be swallowed or coughed out. Thinner secretions are more easily moved so thinning them can help to clear gunk out of your lungs. These drugs are useful if you have a productive ‘chesty’ cough, but don’t help if you just have a cold, or have an irritable ‘itchy’ or ‘tickly’ cough.
This is an anti-inflammatory drug that works by inhibiting an enzyme called cyclooxygenases (COX). This enzyme helps produce the chemical messengers that result in pain and inflammation. Ibuprofen is good for joint pain, helps reduce fevers, is great for headaches and helps in chest infections where there is lots of inflammation. Importantly, Ibuprofen and paracetamol can also be taken together. (However, a note of caution as recent research from Southampton University suggests that, in adults, ibuprofen can actually delay recovery from a cold, because of its interference with the immune response. These are very new findings and need to be investigated further.)
Lots of over-the-counter cold drugs contain caffeine to try and help you get rid of that bleary tired feeling you get with a cold. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system making you more alert. Companies sometimes make a ‘daytime’ pill and a ‘night-time’ cold pill. The only real difference between these two is that the night time version doesn’t have caffeine in it, rather than having something that actually makes you sleep.
This drug is only available in nasal sprays but works similarly to phenylephrine. It causes the blood vessels in your nose to constrict, reducing the pressure in the capillaries and reducing the amount of water that is pushed out into your nasal secretions. It should only be used for a short time because it can damage your nose if used for more than a couple of days.
To help you decide what drugs to stock up on here is a table with a few commonly found brands versus one own branded product. it shows the actual ingredients they contain, and their price (taken from the Boots prices 2013). There are many other branded and unbranded products available, this is just an example to demonstrate how similar these drugs are. The amounts of each ingredient given are the amounts per adult dose for each product. It soon becomes obvious that branded products often contain exactly the same ingredients as the unbranded ones, which are invariably much cheaper! I hope this shows you that it’s worth looking on the back of the box, and empowers you to make an informed decision about what you buy.
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I find a hot glass of Berocca or non-branded alternative sorts out a cold, flu and even a hang-over!