Common Cold

Tips to Prevent Common Cold

1. Frequently washing your hand is critical, especially after a visit to a public place, gym, or contact with a person with cold. Washing hands will wipe off the virus from your hands.

2. If you send kids to a child care or a day care center then choose those which have a policy of keeping sick kids at home.

3. Stay clear from cigarette smoke as it can irritate your airways making you more vulnerable to catching a cold.

4. Disposing off used tissues is important because they can easily contaminate surfaces they come in contact with.

5. If you've
been in the proximity of people with cold ensure that you don't touch your face, nose, mouth, or eyes.

6. Keep your stress levels well managed. Studies have shown that stressed out individuals become more vulnerable to catching a cold.

7. If someone in the family is infected then try to use disposable items such as cups and glasses so as to minimize exposure to a utensil laden with a cold virus after being used by an infected person.

8. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle keeps your immune system intact and may make it better equipped to prevent a virus from establishing a cold infection. Your healthy lifestyle may include diet, exercise, rest and sleep, etc.

9. Often cold viruses can thrive for hours at a stretch on door knobs, drawer pulls, keyboards, light switches, telephones, remote controls, etc. As a result, it makes sense to keep these surfaces clean after use by an infected person.

10. Avoid persons afflicted with common cold from sneezing or coughing in your direction. Encourage them to use tissues, which need to be discarded ASAP after use.

11. When someone in the family has cold don't share cloth towels. While generally using separate towels is a healthy practice doing so during colds becomes all the more important. If possible replace cloth towels with disposable paper towels.

12. Avoid close and prolonged contact with a cold sufferer.

13. If any kids in the family have cold, make sure that you clean their toys after use.

By: Freddic

Labels: chest cold, cold and flu, cold cure, cold flu, cold remedies, cold remedy, cold symptoms, cold treatment, cold virus, colds, common cold, for colds, head cold, the common cold

Viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system is known as common cold by common folk. Medical term for this disease is acute viral nasopharyngitis. Among human diseases, this is the most common and contagious disease that affects adults and its recurrence rate is average of two to four times per year. Recurrence rate can go up to twelve times in a year if it attacks school children. When weather changes from one season to another season in tropical countries, common cold will become widespread, and it usually occurs after school holidays.

November to January and March to August are the two alarming periods. Common cold in bodies can be aggravated by haze, which is released from the open burning of biomass such as paddy and wheat straws. A weakened immune system, which is mostly due to not enough sleep or rest, can do the same harm as the haze. Secondary bacterial infection of the sinuses, pneumonia and asthma is due to the untreated prolonged cases of common cold.

Most common colds are caused by the infection of virus known as rhinovirus. Coronavirus, human parainfluenza viruses, or human respiratory syncytial virus are the other types of viruses that also can cause a common colds. Types of viruses that can cause cold can go up to 200 types and most of them are already present in the environment. A resistance is never built up against to these viruses in our body is due to the variety of these viruses and also the development of new viruses. Because of this, cold quite often recurs. Before the body's immune system defeats the cold virus, it can infect the next person.

Sneezing or coughing can spread virus particle through air and when a person breathes in these particles, it can cause that person catches cold. The second ways, where a person can catch cold is through person to person contact such as shake hand, hug and etc. A cold can also be spread by accidentally touching the mouth or nose with a rhinovirus contaminated hands. Nevertheless, the most threatening is sneezing because a significantly high concentration of virus can be expelled from sneezing. The falling rate of the virus cloud expelled from sneezing can last for hours in air. The virus cloud is invisible because parts of the droplet nuclei evaporating in air.

Due to the evaporating of parts of the droplet nuclei and leaving much smaller and invisible droplet nuclei in the air, the virus cloud is unable to be visualized with bare eyes. Droplets from turbulent sneezing or coughing, which have been spat on any surface, can last for hours. Surface that has been contaminated by droplets through hand contact also can last for a few hours. When the virus enters the cells of the lining of the nasopharynx , which is the area between the nose and throat, it will multiply rapidly.

One to three days is the incubation period, which is the time between becoming infected and developing symptoms. About one day before symptoms begin, that is the infectious period begins. During this time, the infected person can infect others and the infectious period will continue for the first five days of the illness. In a crowded room with the close proximity of an infected person will cause the virus spread more rapidly. That's why children get infected easily in class-rooms or playgrounds.

Sore, scratchy, and phlegmy throat together with congestion and runny nose, sneezing and coughing is the first indication of cold. Side symptoms such as muscle aches, fatigue and weakness may accompany sometimes. Heavy fever or headache, which leads to extreme exhaustion is rarely caused by colds but mostly caused by influenza, a very virulent virus. Cold in severe and rare cases may accompany symptoms of conjunctivitis such as red, itchy, or watery eyes.

If infants or young children catch cold, the symptoms mentioned above may be more severe. For a sufferer who has recovered from common cold will develop immunity in his or her body to the particular virus. However, different kind of cold virus still can easily infect this person. Generally, cold usually will end after five to seven days, but residual symptoms such as coughing and sneezing can last up to one to fourteen days depending to infected person health condition.

When someone with a cold coughs or sneezes, the virus particles can travel up to 12 feet (3.7 meters) through the air. Hence, to prevent ourselves from contracting a cold from this person, the best way is to avoid contact with such person and also stay far from this person. Moreover, we should not share towels or eating utensils such as glass, bottle with someone who has a cold. If you are the one who catches cold, try to practise good hygiene such as washing your hands thoroughly and frequently after blowing your nose.

Besides, you should try to avoid touching your mouth and face in order that your hands will not contaminate with droplet. To prevent from transmitting the disease to other unaffected people, you should cover your nose and mouths with handkerchief when coughing or sneezing.

However, there are medications we can take to relieve the symptoms of the cold. For the last 50 years, herbal formulation to treat common cold already available in Europe. This herbal formulation can help to ward off viral attacks and relieving the symptoms by strengthening the body's immune system. The key components of this formulation are Herba Thujae Occidentalis (white cedar leaf herb), Radix Baptisiae Tinctoriae (wild indigo root), and two Echinacea extracts, which are Radix Echinaceae Purpureae (purple coneflower root) and Radix Echinaceae Pallidae (pale coneflower root). Thujae and Baptisiae can stimulate our immune system, while Echinacea possesses antiviral properties. Our body immune system can be activated with the help of this unique herb combination. Activated immune system can increase its resistance to disease and viral or bacterial infections.

This medication has been going through many clinical trials and 20 of them already published. Currently, this combination of herbs is the only phytomedicine, which is able to treat common cold. Two scientists in Germany, Erich Schaper and Albert Brummer, developed this formulation in 1923, which has been used to treat millions of patients throughout the world. There is no side-effects and safe for consumption for both babies and adults.

By: Alexander Chong

Labels: cold and flu, cold cure, cold flu, cold remedies, cold remedy, cold symptoms, cold treatment, cold virus, colds, common cold, for colds, head cold

Persons infected by cold viruses scatter the disease when they cough or sneeze. Coughing or sneezing causes the infected person to splutter saliva and sticky liquid called mucus. This liquid contains the virus. When microscopic amounts of the liquid contaminate the surroundings, such as the air or personal items like towels or handkerchiefs, people who come into contact with them become vulnerable to the infection. The virus gets transmitted through the air we breath or through our unclean hands when we touch our noses.

While the act of coughing and sneezing gives rise to the viral contagion, it is also the same process by which persons afflicted with cold prevent the virus from infecting the other parts of the body. The concentration of the cold virus inside the nose and the hostile reaction of the white cells create irritating sensations that prompt the nerves to summon a sudden blast of air from the lungs, sweeping the virus out of the way.

But cold viruses are tenacious. Although of infinitesimal sizes and invisible to the naked eye, they are equipped with mooring contraptions which aid them to fasten themselves onto the interior parts of the nose. They then begin to overpower the cells along the lining of the nose, making it possible for them to multiply even more. The viral assault prompts our white cells to react and fight, often emerging victorious in a week of deadly scuffle.

This explains why after several days we feel relieved from common cold even without medication. Our anti-bodies are hard at work in our defense. Common cold is rather of greater concern to children, whose immune systems are less developed than those of adults. Cold sends children to the doctor more than any other illness does. Research data reveal that a child contracts the cold virus more or less eight times per year, with each infection lasting up to an average of seven days.

It takes three or two days for the symptoms of the disease to emerge when the cold virus infects children. The afflicted child becomes bad-tempered; he or she complains of various discomforts and pain such as sore throat, headache, muscle pain, among many others. He or she feels weak and physically drained. The child often coughs and sneezes, develops runny nose or gets the nasal cavities congested. In some cases cold in children can cause fever and body chills. As cold viruses have definite life cycles, drugs are hardly effective in speeding up the process of a child's recovery from cold virus infection. But medicines can help arrest further spread of the virus and make the child feel more comfortable.

Although cold is common, children would do well not to take medicine without proper advice. Parents need to be guided by what the doctor prescribes and to oversee the dosage and drugs to be taken by their children. Decongestants ease the irritation and swelling of the nose lining, making it easier for children to breathe. Antihistamines slows down mucus and helps to control sneezing and runny nose. Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen can be taken when the child feels severe headache and muscle pain.

Aside from medication, food and other forms of treatment can help the child recover quickly from cold. Hot food and drinks help ease throat irritation and coughs. Chicken soup in particular has been known for generations to be effective in providing relief from common cold. Hot showers can freshen stuffy nose. Heat from whatever source induces nasal mucus to dry up. Humidifiers work to loosen the mucus too and ease the irritation brought about by itchy eyes, scratchy and stuffy throats.

Children also need to blow air from the nose frequently to get the mucus out of their body. Using disposable tissues rather than handkerchiefs is better for nose blowing. Above all, total bed rest for one or two days is recommended for children hit by the cold virus.

It takes proper nutrition, physical fitness through exercise, adequate sleep and other practices of healthy living to hasten the full development of the immune system. It still is the child's best defense against common cold.

By: Abhishek Agarwal

Labels: cold and flu, cold cure, cold flu, cold remedies, cold remedy, cold symptoms, cold treatment, cold virus, colds, common cold, for colds, head cold

Common Cold is the inflammation of the upper respiratory tract which is caused by viral infection. This is a very general problem which affects people mostly during monsoons. Common cold viruses cause inflammation of the upper respiratory area, which results in the variety of symptoms.

Common cold infections are so prevalent that there can be very few people who break out the infection each year. More than 200 diverse viruses are known to cause the symptoms of the common cold.

Common Cold Symptoms

The main symptoms of common cold are Runny nose, Sneezing, Tearing, Blocked nose, Sore throat, Cough and Headache.

Here is a list of some useful Home Remedies for Common Cold:

Home Remedies for Common Cold:

1) Dilute lime juice with honey to drink is the top application in cases of common cold attacks and this remedy is also fine Home Remedy for Common Cold.

2) Normal intake of Gooseberry in the winter season helps to boost body immunity against attack of common cold and cough.

3) Peppermint tea may also benefit during the common cold.

4) Ginger: (Zingiber officinale) Ginger extracts taken numerous times a day is a superb Home remedy for Common Cold and to treat coughs that accompany common colds.

5) The roots of the bitter gourd plant are used in folk medicine to treat a cold. A teaspoon of the root paste, mixed with an identical amount of honey or tulsi leaf juice, given once every night for a month, acts as an excellent medicine for colds. This is another effective Home Remedy for Common Cold.

6) In a cup of milk boil 1 tbsp of pepper powder with a pinch of turmeric. You can add some sugar for better taste. Drink this mixture once a day for three days.

7) Garlic soup is an old Home Remedy for Common Cold to reduce the harshness of a cold, and should be taken once daily. The soup can be made by boiling three or four cloves of chopped garlic in a cup of water. Five drops of garlic oil mixed with a teaspoon of onion juice, and diluted in a cup of water, should be taken two to three times in a day. This has also been found to be very useful in the common cold treatment.

8) For dry and stuffy nose, try usual saline or salt water nasal drops made by adding 1/4 teaspoon of table salt to about 4 ml lukewarm water. Make a fresh solution each few days keeping it in fridge. Use a clean dropper to fill 1 to 2 drops in each nostril about 3 to 4 times daily for common cold .

9) Lemon can be used successfully to treat common cold, as it raises the body resistance. Take one glass of warm water and pour some limejuice and a tsp of honey in it and take this once or twice daily. This is a good Home Remedy for Common Cold.

10) A tablespoon of carom seeds (ajwain) crushed and coupled in a muslin cloth and can be inhaled whenever nose is blocked.

11) 3-4 tsp onion juice with 3-4 tsp honey taken daily avoids cold.

By: Tom alter

Labels: cold and flu, cold cure, cold flu, cold remedies, cold remedy, cold symptoms, cold treatment, cold virus, colds, common cold, for colds, head cold