Know Which Ones Are Actually Medicines
Cold and cough medicines rub boxes with supplements and homeopathic products.
These are not at all the same thing, although the labels can look confusingly similar.
Supplementsare regulated sort of like a special kind of food.
Supplements can include vitamins or botanical ingredients.
Sadly, your chance of finding something effective in this category is pretty low.
Vitamins and herbsdont have very good evidence supporting the idea they do anything at all.
Honey-based cough syrups can be soothing, but then why not just use actual honey, which is cheaper?
Homeopathic remediesdo not work, and cannot work, and are 100 percent a waste of money.
If theyre manufactured properly, they may contain absolutely nothing.
If theyre not, they could contain enough of their active ingredient to cause serious side effects.
The secret here is that there are only a few ingredients it’s crucial that you pay attention to.
As we foundlast time we looked into this, identical medicines are often sold in different packaging.
Flip that box around and see what it contains.
The sad news is that not all of these ingredients work very well.
This doesnt mean theyre guaranteed to be useless; the review wasnt able to confirm that either.
All we can say is that if they were miracle drugs, the study would have turned out differently.
Personally, I feel myself coughing less often when I take dextromethorphan, so I still use it.
But if youdontfeel that cough medicines help, go with your gut and back up your money.
Phenylephrine, a popular decongestant, is another disappointment.
Itdoesnt work well, and possibly doesnt work at all.
Youll have to go to the counter and show ID to buy it.
