Alright, I googled this and I’m not the first person to come up with it. So maybe this is more well-known than I think it is, but when it occurred to me it seemed like a revelation.
So here it goes:
All of my colds start in my throat. I get the same tickly-dry sensation in the same place every time, and then my tonsils get inflamed. I’ll get them cut out one of these days, I swear. I used to drink cups of scalding tea to get at it, but while that feels good it doesn’t work. I end up miserably sick and full of tea. No win.
But one day I got this idea. I thought about the experiments I had done in bio and bio-tech classes where we made bacteria resistant or transferred genes into it or watched whole colonies die based on the introduction of just a little salt, heat, alcohol, or acid. I had the eureka moment and headed for the bathroom.
I gargled with mouthwash obsessively, every few hours, for a day. I basically hit it every time I was in the bathroom for any reason. I gargled long and loud and hard, forcing it into the vault of my throat to the point of accidentally swallowing some.
I also verbally abused my resident infection. It went something like this:
I AM EVICTING YOU. YOU DO NOT LIVE HERE. THIS HOST IS DISAGREEABLE. I AM STRONGER AND SMARTER THAN YOU. I LIVE, YOU DIE. GIVE UP, YOU SHORT-LIVED MOTHERFUCKER, YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST. I AM GONNA UNFOLD YOUR PROTEINS SO BAD YOU’LL WISH YOU NEVER LANDED HERE. YOU WILL NEVER BEAT ME FOR I AM YOUR PLANET AND I WANT YOU DEAD.
I like to think the threats help.
As a veteran of endless colds that inevitably turn into bronchitis (thanks for the chain-smoking childhood, parental units!) I dread getting a cold with the serious resolve of someone who has listened to the whistle of her own pneumonia-fucked lungs and idly contemplated death.
If your colds are like mine, if you feel the warning tickle, hit the mouthwash. I buy the Target generic for Listerine and it works dandy.
Mouthwash is my cure for the common cold. May it serve you just as well.
You’re on WordPress too! Yay! Haha. I never tried the mouthwash. I usually do Emergen-C and take a hot shower before bed and try to sweat it out that night to ward off colds. I’ve also been told to eat garlic cloves, raw. That wasn’t cool when I had garlic breath for days…
I have tried the garlic thing, too. All I got from it was the stink. Sweating it out is an awesome idea, I usually do that too, and hot baths. Hooray for WP!