Why this cold ?

Sometimes I wonder why there is no medicine yet available to the common cold (in American terms, it is called flu). Whatever we have currently are just cold-relievers, but not cold-removers. As someone said, if you take cold medicine, it will go away in 7 days, otherwise it takes a week. So why like this, we have been doing wonders in medicine, like heart transplant and kidney transplant, anti-biotics and possibly in next 5 years medicine to AIDS. However we can’t able to defeat a simple cold-virus?

Let’s try to explore more about this cold-virus.

One of the hard-to-digest fact is, cold is not because of a single type of virus, more than 200 viruses implicated in the cause of the common cold. This is also one reason; why we are not able have a single medicine to the common cold.

As per the medical science daily, a virus that causes the cold-like symptom in humans originated in birds and may have crossed the species barrier around 200 years ago. But the cause of the common cold is identified only in 1950s. We can find the common cold description in oldest medical text in Egypt, which is written in 16^th century. However we can also find the common cold remedies in Indian Ayurveda books, which are older than 16th century.

The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes. Others include: coronavirus (10–15%), influenza (5–15%), human parainfluenza viruses, human respiratory syncytial virus, adenoviruses, enteroviruses, and metapneumovirus. Frequently more than one virus is present.[13] In total over 200 different viral types are associated with colds.

As per Ayurveda, it is caused by aggravation of Kapha. It is also caused by weak digestion. When the food we eat is not fully digested it changes into ama. This mucus or ama reaches the respiratory system and causes cold or cough. Other causes are exposure to cold or humid conditions or cold air. The traditional folk theory is that a cold can be "caught" by prolonged exposure to cold weather such as rain or winter conditions, which is how the disease got its name.

Some of the remedies are,

• body should be kept warm especially feet, chest, throat and head. Sweating is very helpful. The simplest way to do it is drink hot spice tea or some other hot drink and lie down on the bed .Take some warm cover like blanket and let the body sweat for 15 to 20 minutes.
• a glass of warm water mixed with one tea spoon of lemon juice and one tea spoon of honey can be taken 2-3 times a day.
• In case of dry cough especially if it trouble is during the night, take cardamom, dry ginger, black pepper and cinnamon in equal quantity, say 10 gms. each. Take white sugar or rock candy equal to the total weight that is 40 gms. Grind them and make a fine powder. From this take half a tea spoon (about 3 gms.) twice a day with honey or warm water after meals.

Antibiotics should not be used to treat a common cold. They will not help and may make the situation worse. Thick yellow or green nasal discharge normally occurs with a cold after a few days. If it does not get better within 10 to 14 days, then your doctor may prescribe antibiotics.

To prevent this,

• Always wash your hands after nose-wiping, using the bathroom, and before eating and preparing food.
• Use instant hand sanitizers: these products use alcohol to destroy germs. They are an antiseptic, not an antibiotic, so resistance can't develop. A little dab will kill 99.99% of germs without any water or towels.
• Use paper towels instead of sharing cloth towels.

Finally whatever we do, we can’t totally avoid getting this virus in our body, at least by taking care of above preventions, and we can minimize the frequency of the attacks in a year. One more thing is, keep your immune system in good condition, which is the only hope to get rid of this annoying disease.