Cough mixtures dont work

[Lovelee]

Most cough medicines ineffective on children: study

A study by the UK's peak healthcare regulator has found that many popular cough medicines sold over the counter are not effective in children under 12.

The review by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency found no robust evidence that many popular medicines work in children.

It also said that the drugs could cause side effects such as allergic reactions, effects on sleep or hallucinations.

The MHRA said 36 medicines should no longer be sold for treating children under the age of six.

The health watchdog advised parents to stick to simple products like paracetamol, ibuprofen, and warm lemon and honey, as a cough or a cold would get better after a few days.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/02/2504510.htm

I know Ive used some in the past that have appeared to do nothing - however I also know Ive used some that have been almost immediately effective.

[Calliope]

quite a few years ago my GP prescribed a cough medicine for me which made me very mellow. If I started to get uptight the general response was "go and take you cough mixture"

[guest49]

One that always cleared my chest was Benedryl Expectorant.
I believe you cant get it now, as it was one of those the meth manufacturers were using to provide an ingredient and its been removed from the market.
Bastards!

[Ferney]

You can still get Benadryl.    I've checked a bottle we have and none of the named ingredients are in it.   Its the non drowsy one though.   I also have  Robitussin for a dry cough and it has one of them.   Still....what do you do, stay awake all night with a dry cough or get some sleep.   I bought that one for a grandson who was left with a dry cough after a chest infection.   It works. 

[guest49]

Yo cant get the real one Ferny. The ones you can get with the benedryl name on bear no relationship to the effective one.
I checked it out at the pharmacy and the chemist tells me that they are now just the same as the rest of the placebos they sell as cough medicine.

[ssweetpea]

I like diffam lozengers. My throat stays numb a while after I have finished sucking and my tongue doesn't. That is one up on barley sugars and strepsils.

As for cough mixture dimetapp do a chesty one that seems to help a little but for a dry nagging cough a puff of ventolin works much better

I remember that benedryl one as well, the current one is not the same or effective.

[Shef]

The one thing I swear by to stop any sort of cough is the propolis (sp) that Mr S used to scrape from his hives. It was unbeatable - a match-head sized piece chewed with a small piece of gum stopped coughing almost immediately.

[Lovelee]

Is that the waxy stuff?

[Shef]

Yeah - tastes foul but works like nothing I have ever seen before. It's what the bees use to weather/heatproof the hives (basically bee spit). Mr S used to get an ice-cream container full every year, apparently it was worth a fortune, but by the time we'd saved ours and passed on what family/friends needed, it was near enough to gone

[Lovelee]

Yeh - that explains something Ive always wondered bout.

Back in days of old a teaspoon of honey did help a cough.  I suspect that was cos back then, much of the waxy stuff was included in honeys - and I only ever remember having comb honey in the house back then.

The honey we get now is so cleaned of the wax they dont work as they used to.

My theory was always that the phlegm attached itself to the molecules of wax and was able to be expectorated.

[Crusader]

As a kid my mother used to always tell me that those over the counter medicines were crap and all they do is destroy your immune system. She never gave them to me when I was sick and would rather rely on my immune system to sort out all my colds. Nowadays I hardly get sick, at work I am the one that has taken the least amount of sick days, Someone can cough all over me and I don't catch it. I put that down to my mother spending all those years building up my immune system.

[HisMajesty]

Cough suppressants and cough expectorants from various brands are all more or less the same. They don't treat your cough (i.e. not antivirals) so should not affect your immune system. They simply provide symptomatic relief.

Cough expectorants have been suspect for a long time and some have argued that the dose provided in these products would be barely enough to get to the lungs and break the phlegm. They do soothe the throat though and, like honey, they cover up the nerve endings to reduce the cough stimulus.

Cough suppressants work in many people and evidence published a couple of years ago showed that they were more effective in suppressing dry cough than cough expectorants were in relieving phlegmy cough.

As for cough mixtures with decongestants (i.e. the methamphetamine derivatives) these also work well to relieve symptoms of cough and congestion.

Again, these are all designed to relieve symptoms so should not affect your immune system.