A cold is a viral infection and effects millions each day. Sadly you can't go about your day-to-day life wearing a face mask and avoiding the infectious people, so what can we do to stop colds ruining our daily routines?
It’s hard to get rid of a cold with treatments so we have to leave that to part – it should go away in one-to-two weeks on its own. However, we can do things to make ourselves feel better.
Having a Vitamin C tablet and lots of supplements e.g. oranges, should bring your energy levels up and help strengthen your immune system.
Drink plenty of warm drinks, this should warm you up on the inside and should stop you from shivering.
If you’re a smoker try to cut down or avoid it while you’re ill, it irritates the mucous membrane of the nose even more than it already is.
After blowing, wiping your nose or sneezing on a tissue throw it away. Having infected tissues lying around will spread the cold virus through the air – you don’t want those nasty cold germs hovering in your personal space.
If your nose is blocked, get a vapourizer that you can have in the room with you when you are sleeping and sleep with your head on a high pillow to keep your breathing the best it can be.
It is uncommon that you should need to visit your GP because of a cold on its own, but if you suffer from other symptoms such as earache, a bleeding nose or sickness etc. then you might need antibiotics