Oh no...my throat is scratchy tonight all of a sudden and I feel rather rotten. My 5yo had a cold (never got too terrible) that began like this a couple of weeks ago. However, even when my kids are spared, I seem to almost always be hit very hard. Even worse, my baby shower is tomorrow.

I remembered and sought out this old thread of mine: Safe cold/cough meds? Quick?!

I noticed that Zicam's supposed to be safe? I'm wanting to take the one in from the orange box that helps lessen the duration of colds, etc. Does anyone know if it's ok? I also have Airborne and Chloraseptic spray (or the generic equiv). Any thoughts?...Quick? Oh man...

__________________

Well I think my list of 'okay' meds from my OB has chloraseptic spray listed. I remember asking about Zicam early on and was basically told they really don't know if its okay or not and suggested not taking it. I looked all over the internet to see if there was anything I could find on it and everything said check with physician... UGH! and then ofcourse they were not help either. So I erred on the side of caution and didn't take it.

__________________
Nikki ('78)
DH Chris ('73)
DD Madison 7/11/03
DS Colton 7/18/06
DS Fisher 5/31/08

Chloraseptic is on my safe list too. I do use only Zicam nasal swabs at the onset of a cold. I don't take any of the oral type though. I wasn't told I should or shouldn't, but went with my gut, since it was homeopathic and it was only used in the nasal passage where the cold virus replicates. I remembered someone's MW gave the ok for it on a thread, but I can't remember whose. I personally wouldn't take the oral form of it though, since they don't know that much about it. Plus most doctors laugh at all questions about homeopathic meds. However, I truly believe in Zicam and it works for me every time.

"Off the record" when I was in the doctor's office last week, a girl was asking about OTC meds, because her two boys had had strep and her throat was getting sore. The nurse told her ANY of the OTC meds in short use were not harmful. So if she would just catch it at the onset and not have to take them more than a few days, it would be fine at this stage - she is in her 3rd trimester.

__________________

I think my Ob was against me taking it. Have you tried gargling with warm water and salt? That works for me. It should taste like sea water and you should gargle as much as you can, at least 1/2 a cup.

__________________

I don't have the edit function. Weird!

Anyway, make sure it's as warm as you can stand. You don't want to burn yourself though!

__________________

Melissa,
What did you end up doing? Are you feeling ok today? Hope you can head off any illness.

__________________

Well, I thought I was doing alright. I realized the Zicam I had on hand was expired and ended up tossing it. I did take some Airborne though...I admit I was pretty desperate and figured it would be fine at this latter stage of the third tri. I only took it twice, but then read about the high levels of Vit. A in it. (Real smart, me! ) I got rather paranoid tonight, but my DH wasn't. I'm hoping that it, combined with my vits, just those two times won't hurt anything. Basically, I doubled the rec. dose of Vit A in a 24hr time period. I felt good during the shower (other than my awful, ongoing SPD throbbing pain whenever I tried to stand or walk...), but have been hit again and am feeling kind of under the weather again tonight. It's nothing awful, but annoying and draining. I'm just hoping I don't develop a really bad cough as usual. There is no way I could tolerate it with all of my pain down yonder.

Thanks for asking.

__________________

Oh, I forgot to mention that someone told me last fall that the Zicam nasal swabs (which I've used before) were somehow linked to having strokes and that that form of it was supposedly being taken off the market. However, they were very much on the shelves at Walgreens here yesterday. Huh? I haven't researched it, so not sure what's up with that?