Weapons for the Cold War

It’s that time of the year. It starts with a funny feeling in your nose--sometimes a little dryness in your throat. Pretty soon your head feels like a bowling ball, you’re going through tissues by the case, and maybe even a fever sets in. Welcome to cold and flu season--officially December to March--and, unfortunately, there still is no cure.

Depending on your style and background, you will choose your own methods for doing battle with these pesky viruses. But whether you ride it out, run to the drugstore, or cook up a home remedy, the Internet has hundreds of sites that can arm you with valuable information. Here are a few:

If prevention is your game, try drinking orange juice. I discovered at https://www.phys.com/b_nutrition/01self_analysis/05colds/citrus.htm that just one glass a day (containing 80 milligrams of vitamin C) resulted in 14% to 21% fewer cold symptoms, according to an oft-cited study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Flu shots are a good preventive measure as well. You can learn about their pros and cons by logging on to the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Web site (https://www.aafp.org) and searching the site for “flu shot.” As the information states, it’s not always an issue of protecting yourself, but protecting those around you. For example, if you have a baby who was born prematurely, doctors recommend that all family members receive a shot.

People 65 or older are at higher risk for having medical complications from the flu, so a shot is recommended. Medicare pays for flu shots, and the agency’s site (https://www.medicare.gov/fightflu/fightflu.html) includes information in Spanish as well as English. A flu shot is also recommended for people who have problems related to the heart, lungs, kidneys, diabetes or the immune system.

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What’s the difference between a cold and the flu? Under the header “Colds and Flu: Time Only Sure Cure,” the Food and Drug Administration’s site offers an in-depth article. The article includes a handy chart of symptoms (https://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/896_flu.html#chart) that can help you determine whether what you’ve got is a cold or theflu.

Tylenol’s site (https://www.tylenol.com) will teach you what viruses are and how they work. When I looked under “A Closer Look at Colds and Flu” (https://204.183.199.4/flu/coldsandflu.html), I found interesting illustrations of a cold virus and a flu virus, an explanation of how you acquire the viruses and why your body reacts the way it does once you’ve been invaded. By learning how the viruses are contracted, you can help cut down on the prevalence of colds and flu in your house.

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If you’re the type that runs straight to the drugstore for relief of your cold and flu symptoms, over-the-counter medications are plentiful, as are their Web sites. You can check out https://www.benadryl.com, https://www.triaminic.com, or https://www.advil.com, just to name a few. Some of these sites allow you to plug in your symptoms to determine which of their medications will meet your needs. But none of these offers as much information as the Tylenol site.

Some people prefer good old-fashioned home remedies. A visit to https://www.phys.com taught me the scientific reasons some of these standbys have stood the test of time. The site focuses on fitness and nutrition, using original material and health-related content from Conde Nast publications, including Glamour, Self, Vogue and Women’s Sports and Fitness.

Orange juice is an easy home remedy, as I’ve mentioned. There is scientific evidence that it makes your cold feel less nasty and helps you to get better sooner because of the vitamin C. Hot tea contains caffeine and other phytochemicals that help to open the airways of cold sufferers. Tea’s tannins may also attack the viruses and bacteria that cause colds and flu, according to reports on the Phys.com site. Chile peppers have phytochemicals that stimulate mucus-secreting glands of the lungs and nose, loosening phlegm so your body can get rid of it, the site reports. So go ahead and spice up your chicken soup with some chile peppers.

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Perhaps the best course of treatment is to maintain a sense of humor and try to smile. There’s no cure, so you just have to make the best of it. Or, if you feel like you can make it to the kitchen, you might want to whip up Grandma’s favorite remedy: chicken soup. You can find recipes on the Web--and even electronically order takeout. While I can’t vouch for the recipes, I can say that chicken soup helped me battle the cold I had while writing this column:

* Chicken Soup From Around the World: Four recipes, excerpted from Janet Hazen’s “The Chicken Soup Book,” can be found at https://www.grandtimes.com/soup.html.

* You can find the recipe for Chinese Three Mushroom Chicken Soup, said to “prevent” colds, at https://sorex.tvi.cc.nm.us/recipes/chknsoup.htm.

* And if you don’t feel like cooking, the Soup Nutsy (https://www.soupnutsy.com) will express-mail you Old-Fashioned Chunky Chicken Noodle soup (a five-quart minimum is required).

So enjoy these Web sites, have some soup and hang in there. This, too, shall pass--right around the end of March.

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Marla Bolotsky is managing editor and director of online information for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. She welcomes suggestions of Web sites for review and can be reached by e-mail atmarla.bolotsky@latimes.com.

Your Health Online runs every other Monday in Health.