Self-Care Measures: Cold

Colds - Self-Care Measures
Symptoms: Sneezing, runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, dry cough, low-grade fever. Self-Care Measures

• Take adequate rest if you have a fever.
• Drink lots of liquids. Take an over- the -counter medicine (paracetamol and/ or aspirin) for relieving pain and/or fever.
• Use salt water drops for nasal decongestion. The procedure is as follows: Dissolve half a teaspoon of salt in one cup of warm water and put three to four drops into each nostril several times a day, using a clean medicine dropper.
• Use a vaporizer or a humidifier, if possible.
• Eat hot and spicy foods, which help in draining the mucus.

Call Your Doctor for

• Quick breathing, troubled breathing or wheezing
• A feeling of weakness or with loss of energy along with delirium
• A bad earache or swollen, painful neck glands - Fever lasting more than three to four days or over 102° F.
• A sore throat that looks red or has white spots.
• A cough that brings up sputum of any color.
• Pain or swelling over your sinuses.