By the way, I hate being sick

[womzilla]

And I truly do wish it would stop now. I've had what I think is the worst cold of my life for the last six days--actually, given that the first indication I had that I was getting sick was waking up at 3 AM last Wednesday with my eyes crusted shut with goop, I guess I just celebrated the one-week anniversary about half an hour ago. Mild fever and hence only a moderate case of what I call "febrile thoughtjunk", not much in the way of muscle aches or chills, so it's clear that it was a cold rather than The Influence, but man, I have coughed up or snorted out more mucus in the past 168 hours than an entire convention of chain smokers waking up from a hangover.

(Early in the cold, nellorat and I decided that "Smokey Lungmucus" sounded like an early Ren and Stimpy character.)

I actually had my worst case of febrile ideation this evening; I spent over an hour chasing ideas barely the far side of coherent in which the house, the universe, my body, and storytelling were all parts of elaborate three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles told in an Irish accent. Fascinating stuff, but not particularly fun to live through.

I missed three full days of work, the first time I've ever done that for anything short of surgery; my voice is strained; I'm not sleeping well, as indicated by the fact that I'm posting at 3:30 AM on a work night. And it scares the hell out of me that I thought I might have bacterial conjunctivitis--treatable, but highly contagious and possibly seriously damaging--and still couldn't manage to get a doctor's appointment in less than 48 hours. Good thing we don't have socialized medicine here in the USA or I might not have access to necessary health care with reasonable speed.

Well. My overnight dose of placebo*--err, cough medicine--is kicking in, and I suspect I can get back to sleep for the four hours remaining until I have to get up for work.

(* I'm very annoyed that just as my cold was beginning, a major article was published in Chest Journal indicating that over-the-counter cough medicines "don't really work", but the coverage was contradictory. From the mainstream press reports, it appears that the key medicines involved--antihistamines, expectorants, and cough suppressants--do actually "work" but the dosages in most OTC formulations are inadequate. But the actual article with, you know, FACTS isn't available anywhere online.)

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Challenging the industry rulings on what consitutes an adequate dose of cough suppressant, along with other forms of substance abuse, had the lasting effect of making my febrile ideation less scary, and sometimes downright friendly. As you know, Bob, I don't experiment anymore, but in some ways I really didn't exhale.

[quility.livejournal.com]

Eeep! You poor thing. Don't rush going back to work. *HUG*

I personally fel like Nyquil has practically saved my life. Could have been placebo. or coincidence, but I went from feeling really, really crappy - to sleep - to feeling like I was getting better.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

In my experience: OTC expectorant (guaifenesin) helps a lot, but the cough suppressants do nada. Of course, I'm not a scientific study or even a fount of NyQuil-related good anecdotes.

Here's hoping you feel much better soon.

[avram]

And “Chest Journal” sounds like a boob porn mag striving inadequately to seem classy.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I hope you're feeing better really soon. I got a mild sore throat/feeling somewhat knocked out thing at Arisia, and I obviously got off easy.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

"(Early in the cold, [info]nellorat and I decided that "Smokey Lungmucus" sounded like an early Ren and Stimpy character.)"

Either that or a new MacDonalds menu item:
"Hi there, would you like some Ketchup on your Smokey Lung MacMucus?"

But seriously, I applaud you decision NOT to go to work and spread joy and disease where ever you go.
Have plenty of hot fluids, and get better soon.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Odd, i was able to find the actual study on the Cough Suppresant activity fairly quickly. Turns out they developed a machine to automatically measure coughs for the study, which is cool.

http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content/full/120/4/1121?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=cold+medicine+OTC&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1137621602096_12413&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=1&journalcode=chest

And, the kicker: the actual effect of Dextromethorphan:
http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content-nw/full/120/4/1121/T4
About 1/8 fewer coughs, most of the time, the only high p is the intensity, about 5% less.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Looks like that's a study from 2001. Still cool.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Hope it clears out quickly now and you feel bette! *hugs*

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you've been hit so hard. Hope it clears up soon.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I've been feeling crummy with a cold these days, but damn ... yours seems 20x worse. Hope you feel better soon.