Stop a Cold in Just 12 Hours

Sari Harrar,

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Mugs of tea, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a truckload of tissues won't get you through every case of the sniffles. Too often, the common cold turns into something more serious, zeroing in on your personal weak point to become a sinus infection, a sore throat, a nonstop cough, an attack of bronchitis, or an ear infection. And if you're prone to a particular complication -- thanks, perhaps, to an anatomical quirk (such as sinus obstructions), an underlying medical problem (early asthma, for example), or a history of a particular illness (childhood ear infections) -- your odds of getting sicker, faster, can skyrocket.

But complications aren't inevitable, new research shows. "With the right strategies, you can cut your risk significantly," says Gailen D. Marshall, Ph.D., M.D., director of the division of clinical immunology and allergy at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson................