i was pretty sick when I was a kid...

[lauralh]

Mainly just cold medication, of course. By age 15 I was more or less immune to Sudafed and Tylenol. And let's not even get started on nose spray.

In retrospect I realize a lot of that was just allergies - I was sick a lot less often when I left home, and almost never after I started living alone. Except when people visited me via airplanes. But I stopped taking drugs so often. Except for Advil of course, but even that I don't take but once a month. You know. Although nowadays even ordinary old normal-strength Tylenol kills my pain.

I had a really bad cold last February while onsite for my job in Chicago (er, Skokie). The first few days of it, I just took standard Comtrex and/or Contac. It had little effect on anything but my coughs, though. Well, it made me feel light-headed, too, but that wasn't exactly what I was shooting for. My friend Ana recommended Tylenol Flu to me, which I finally picked up (generic brand), and began taking. I suppose the other stuff had only one ingredient in common with TF, because it actually had an effect. It made me feel like a human being again.

So when I felt all terrible Friday, I picked some up after work. I hadn't really thought about the fact that it had been months and months since I'd taken any sort of cold medication (November, I think). It didn't actually have a huge weirdness effect until the second dose, which pretty much pepped me right up. I started just talking and talking and talking - and blathering on and on about talking. That was pretty much the worst of it though; the rest of the time the psuedephadrine just sort of made me light-headed and restless.

I also took the real thing - ephedra - to see if it had any similar effects. I've taken it before and it sort of makes your mind feel like you'd been smoking pot, but your body feel like you've been drinking Jolt. While sick it's not nearly as much fun, especially as I'm sure my body is now accustomed to the fake stuff, but it does dry the nose out a bit. And it's more "buffered" than it as well.

Comments

[alishas.livejournal.com]

I got completely the wrong idea of what your post was going to be.

damn americanisms :)

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I should have said "often ill" instead of "pretty sick." Or at least "sickly"...

[scarlett723.livejournal.com]

Alleve cold and sinus is my friend :) It clears your head and it doesn't really give you medicine head (except a little), though I wouldn't recommend it for night time.

[(Anonymous)]

good title, no pay off.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

i'm saving the frog-torture story for another day.

[note: no frogs were injured in the making of the frog-torture story.]