Yikes (on the carbs!) Sorry you are feeling bad!

I understand the "when in a pinch" scenarios...as a rule for me (& my kids as well) I almost never buy the "One-med-fixes-all" kind of thing just because we almost never have all the symptoms that are supposed to be suppressed by them and I hate the idea of taking meds we don't need. Plus, pretty much all liquid meds are made up mostly of corn syrup or some such stuff, and in reading labels, they (cold meds in general) are all made up of the same active drug ingredients (decongestant (phenylephrine) - expectorant (guaifenasin) - pain reliever/fever reducer (acetamenaphin or ibuprofen) - and occasionally antihistamine like diphenhydramine).

My constant go-tos for my allergy/sinus probs are Sudafed 12 hour (generic is cheapest) caps (behind pharm counter) and generic mucinex tabs (in addition to my allergy meds). If I really need a cough supressant, I suck it up and go with the 12 hour dosage of the generic version of Delsym. still syrupy, but 2 tsp once a day is better than every 4 hours?? Doesn't sound like you have a cough, so you can probably skip any meds that have the cough suppressant dextromethor-something or other.

Good luck and I hope you feel better soon!

_tierachanel wrote: »

Okay, so I have a cold and had to go to work today. My head is pounding, I have earaches in both ears, nose is stuffed up, and on top of that I have to stare at a computer all day. I thought I would be okay so I didn't take any meds. It got so bad that I needed something to control the symptoms asap so I raided the company medicine cabinet. In all its glory I find liquid DayQuil. I poured 2 TBS and downed it as fast as I could not thinking to scan it first. I go back to my desk to log it into MFP... 2 TBS had 19.5 CARBS!!! I stick to 20 g of carbs a day and that one drink of cough medicine had my whole days intake of carbohydrates. *face palm*

Any recommendations of cold meds that wont kill your total daily carb intake??

@tierachanel - Thanks for bringing up this great topic. [@Dragonwolf @baconslave - Launch Pad item?]

Your experience explains the need for diabetic cough syrups, which you can find - assuming you know you need to look for them.

(Personally, I avoid all the chest cold relief stuff due to jitters and triglyceride & BG spikes; I tend to reach for zyrtec, aspirin, steam.... and hard liquor instead. But that's probably not very helpful in your situation.)

Thanks again.

A few drops of eucalyptus and rosemary essential oils in steam can do wonders for clearing sinuses. There are some combinations of oils that work well on coughs and pain relief too.