How do you fight off a cold?

I do the Zicam as well as drinking lots of water and green tea. I like zinc lozenges too.

If your child still naps, rest when he/she does.. Go to bed early.. eat healthy, and try to not over do it on exercise the next few days.. I had found that if you really exert yourself when you are in the pre sick stage, you tend to get full sick.. the zinc/vit c not a bad idea... rest, and time is the cure.. it sucks.. I find now that i am healthier..I tend to "fight things" for a long time.. it drags it out!!!!!

^^This. Rest and healthy choices!

I do this too. Make sure I eat, take my vitamins, DRINK TONS OF WATER, and workout reallly hard. Haha, not sure if it's the best advice, but it works for me. My cold is gone so quick this way. It just really sucks while working out because you are slighty drained.

A good workout (high intensity, lost of sweat) followed by a good night's sleep almost always works for me.

Emergen C - works great!

echinacea, an all natural and safe herb is just an immune system booster. It can and will help prevent and get a sick person better faster. It can be found at any major pharmacy or walmart with the supplements.
I'm an herby naturalist so I reccommend echinacea to everyone.. Garlic and onions in soup also helps
Kimmy

I love echinacea tea by celestial seasonings. When I feel a cold coming on I drink a bunch of it with some honey and cinnamon. Cinnamon helps boost the immune system also.

i think the old remedies like plenty of rest and fluids work well. if that doesn't work then try Airborne. it worked for me when i traveled recently to run a race. not sure if it is safe for children though. check it out.

I alternate echinacea and elderberry all winter, as preventatives, which does seem to help. I also take ginger root capsules and grate fresh or powdered ginger into a lot of my food, particularly if I feel scratchy (reliant on my voice for work, so colds are BAD news.). Apart from that, zinc and Vit C, garlic in everything and masses of water/liquids. Lemon/honey/ginger/cloves and a slug of olive oil as a drink seems to help too. It's not ideal on the calorie front, but if I've just started a cold I drink a litre or so of fresh-squeezed orange juice on the first day, and also ginger beer made with proper ginger rather than flavourings. Anything to increase Vit C and ginger intake!

There is also a European homeopathy product called Oscillococcinum, which you can take weekly as a preventative measure, or several times a day if you have a cold. Don't know if you can get it where you are, but I highly recommend it, despite normally being very sceptical about alternative remedies other than the long-standing immune fortifiers.

My dad told me when he was growing up and getting sick, his mother (italian) would make some kind of garlic paste and rub it on his chest and it worked wonders. He said he thinks it worked because nobody would go near him because he was stinky, lol. Love to hear about old fashioned remedies. But I am NOT wearing the garlic paste

What does that do? Is it the same idea as Vick's VapoRub?

Oscillococcinum's not really homeopathic, and isn't water-based in any case, but I couldn't think of another word to describe it! I share your reservations about homeopathic treatments. I guess it's probably better described as an over-the-counter medication.

Oscillococcinum's not really homeopathic, and isn't water-based in any case, but I couldn't think of another word to describe it! I share your reservations about homeopathic treatments. I guess it's probably better described as an over-the-counter medication.

Not water based, true in a sense since the pills are just sugar, but its made by diluting duck liver (and heart I think) to like 200C, which essentially means there's nothing in it, into water which is then evaporated and sugar pill-ified. Its homeopathy. :P.

(PS thanks for not getting annoyed at me, I feel I tend to come off like a jerk in these topics even though I don't mean to.)

Not a problem - you know more about this particular pill than I do, clearly! I first bought it in Holland, and I don't really read Dutch - just enough to get the gist, and I was desperate for something, anything, to stave off a cold and Upper Respiratory Tract-infection. I just know that it seems to work, and I'm all about staying cold-/flu- and URT-infection - free! Duck liver or whatever it takes!