What is your favorite cold medicine that is safe?

sudafed works wonders

Well, I generally don't take a multi-symptom anything anymore after nursing school.  :)  I only take Nyquil if I literally have every symptom on the box.  Otherwise, I just take the one or two meds I need based on my symptoms.

If I'm having nasal congestion, I get the "good Sudafed" from behind the counter - the one you have to sign in blood for.  None of the new substitutes work as well IMHO.

If I'm having too much drainage, sneezing, etc. I generally take Benadryl.  I'm so tolerant to it that a small dose doesn't make me drowsy.  If I'm worried about drowsiness, I'll take Clairitin or Zyrtec but they don't work as well for acute illness IMHO.

For cough, if I can't get a prescription from my doc for the best stuff, I use Delsym.  But research has shown that pineapple juice is pretty much as effective as OTC cough meds, so I drink that too.  And use Hall's cough drops.

If the congestion moves to the chest, I use the version of Mucinex that is just guiafenisen, and I don't use the long-acting one.  CAUTION:  You need to drink LOTS of extra water when you use this med.  It works by pulling liquid from your body to thin the mucus so you can cough it up, so it can dehydrate you and not work right if you're not careful.

Aches/pains - whatever you usually take.  I'm allowed NSAIDs for other reasons and Tylenol doesn't do jack for me, so I take Advil if it gets too bad.

Beyond that, the traditional advice of lots of fluids, chicken soup, orange juice, etc.  I've seen enough research on zinc that I'll use it if I get a bad cold.

I had a nice supply of Coracidin from when I used to have high blood pressure.

This past year I've not had much problem at all with colds so my old supply of Corcidin products are my staples.  They don't jangle with blood pressure so much and I felt better when I used them.

I have a prescription for Flonase nasal spray that I use before sleeping each night.  It is miraculous in opening up my nasal airway and I breath easy and sleep is improved.   It also helps with congestion during times when a cold tried to take footholds.

I also find that drinking hot liquids really help even more during those times.  

I'll also adopt to eating more hot soups and such for meals.

In short......I personally find it better to keep the stuff flowing vs taking meds that seem to trap it in there.  

Sinus irrigation works amazingly well.  I couldn't get the hang of a neti pot, so I got a water-pik style irrigator.  It's REALLY great.

How about home remedies like ho****er, lemon, ginger, tumeric and honey ro sweeten? Of course before trying anything consult with your surgeon/doctor. 

I've   been using dayquil caplets since last night with no improvement. Due to the meth freaks we can't get real sudafed. I will try something else this evening. 

Pre op I used Thera flu and always felt better after one night. It is a Tylenol based product so should be safe but I have not used post op to say how I'll react. It dries everything up so the congestion leaves faster. 

Not even from the pharmacist? That sucks! You usually have to give them your drivers license and sign away your first born, but you can usually get it. 

It requires an rx and the doctors will only order the low dose.

This is where my sweetie rocks though. I took my second round of dayquil around noon.I talked to her shortly after and she could tell that I was much rougher than I was saying  (I'm a man, we do stupid stuff like that). She took it upon herself to drive over 2 hours one way to California just so she could buy me 24 maximum strength caplets of real Sudafed. SHE ROCKS!

If it's just feeling crappy, my go-tos are water or french onion soup.

If it's congestion/sneezing/dripping, claritin in the morning and double doses (50mg) of sudafed four times a day.