To think after a million years there should be a cure for the common cold

[McChristmasPants2012]

I am sick of being ill now.

Lemon sips, fluid and plenty of vitamin c along with resting when I can is not working.

I just feel like phoning in sick, but we are so short staffed ATM and I feel a cold isn't a good of enough reason to phone in.

Surely there should be some sort of cure by now

[chrismissymoomoomee]

One of my neighbours knows that oranges cure the common cold. Every time I had a cold she would come round tutting and muttering about how its shocking as it could easily have been prevented.

She has succeeded where millions have failed.

[McChristmasPants2012]

Right off to lidl for some oranges lol

[willow777]

I wish she'd told me that before, I've had one for weeks! Even ranting has n't lessened the impact. Fed up wiht it now

[JeezyOrangePips]

I swear by Vicks First Defence - it helps stop the cold from getting really bad. I'm asthmatic, and since I've started using it I haven't had one cold go to my chest the way they used to. You have to use it in the first day or two, and you have to be careful how you use it (squirt to the side, not straight up), it's not particularly pleasant, but it works.

[McChristmasPants2012]

Will it work now

[GrimmaTheNome]

My late MIL swore she never had a cold ever since she started taking garlic capsules. Maybe they just stopped people getting too close...

Scientists may be getting close see here. The piece also explains that there is a cure already...but it makes you feel worse than the cold.

Hope you feel better soon.

[dawsonjunior]

Who's to say there isn't a cure?

Maybe its a government conspiracy.

[Longdistance]

My dh's cure is to go for a run. I kid you not. He then sweats it off in bed overnight and he's bright and breezy the next day!

[JeezyOrangePips]

No, I think it's too late for this time, but it might be woirth buying it and having it in the house for next time.

[McChristmasPants2012]

I think I will keel over if I went for a run

[degutastic]

Don't worry, we're only three hundred years off!

Star Trek tng is a documentary, right?

[LRDtheFeministDude]

I too have a failsafe cure. I'd just take five to seven days in bed, and it disappears, like magic!

I do think washing your hands and face obsessively, whenever you come in, at least makes you feel less cringey about people sneezing/coughing all over you, but whether or not it's actually preventative I doubt!

Sorry you feel rotten.

[OkayHazel]

My cure is my duvet, ice cream and Love Actually.

[Tarenath]

I think it's just natures way of saying she'll always be one step ahead.

[sashh]

If there was a cure then think how many £££ would not be spent on lemsip, vicks etc.

There is a conspiracy theory that a cure has been found but it is better for the pharmacutical industry to not divulge it.

[MrsBW]

Conspiracy theory? Maybe... Lots of people think so. Same with AIDS.

But put simply, (and apologies if it's patronising and you know it already) it's difficult to find a cure for any virus because of the way they work. Unlike bacteria, viruses invade host cells, replicate then release more virus (then rinse and repeat thousands of times). It's hard to kill the virus without killing the host (healthy) cell which would do more harm than good.

Also... There isn't really any such single disease as 'the common cold' .... It's a collective term for a large number of slightly different viruses that cause similar symptoms, complicating it further.

It's also why antibiotics don't work on colds... Because they're not caused by bacteria.

Anyway, as I said, apologies if that comes across as patronising. Here endeth the lesson

[MrsBW]

P.S. Hope you feel better soon

[forevergreek]

I think there is a cure atm for the current viruses, but of in say 5 years time a mutant one appeared we would all fall even sicker and many more would die as we need to build up an immunity as is was over time. It means that each year we just have to cope with a new strain rather than the whole thing

[Binkyridesagain]

I have just been googling as I remember d
Dr Hilary saying keep your nose warm, anyway i couldn't find a link. What I did find though, I thought would be of better use.
It's from the 1950s, so it is a 'mothers cure' and we all know they work.
trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/971092
The interesting bit is half way down and says

Then he quotes from an old English
cure, to be instituted at the first
inkling of a head cold. "To hang
one's hat on the bedpost, drink from
a bottle of good whisky until two
hats appear, and then get into bed
and stay there."

Sound advice I think, I'm off to try it

[GrimmaTheNome]

My dh's cure is to go for a run. I kid you not. He then sweats it off in bed overnight

Not so daft - there is evidence that elevated temperature helps. Apart from keeping warm, it may be better to avoid medicines which reduce temperature - a mild fever may actually be part of the body's own defence mechanism.

I'd rather try a hot bath than a run though!

[McChristmasPants2012]

well oranges are not working.

still feeling like death warmed up, so going to try OkayHazel method failing that the whiskey one sounds good.

MrsBW, I didn't know that so that my 'you learn something new' thing for today :)

[Ratata]

The reason there isn't a cure is because there are so many different strains of the common cold, rather than just one type. So you get a cold, your body creates the antibodies to fight off that particular cold, but they don't work the next time you get a cold because it's a different kind and it needs time to make different antibodies.

Chicken pox usually has one strain so you get it once and not again, or rarely again.

I'm no biologist but hopefully that helps explain things. :)