How do pharmaceutical companies get away with the lie that is cough “medicine”?

[Coughmedicinedoesntwork]

Seriously, how are they allowed to sell this stuff? I must have tried every brand and type of cough medicine including liquids/syrups/tablets/lozenges and NONE of them work. They do not stop or help a cough. Had everything pinned on Covonia but again doesn’t work.

I’m talking about those awful coughs you get when you have a cold, with these useless products specifically being targets at cough and cold sufferers. I even tried a humidifier and what a waste of money that was too. In fact everything I’ve read is a waste of time and money. Yesterday I tried garlic and pineapple as “natural” remedies and they did zero to help with my cough.

I feel like we are all sold this rubbish that the medicine works and as unwell people are desperate for some relief we will try anything and these companies know this and benefit from peddling their rubbish products.

Can you tell I am fed up after another night of coughing and no sleep. I just want something to work.

I once found Covonia Syrup mixed with a stiff amount of gin did wonders for a chesty cough, and Jakemans black cough sweets are pretty goodfor all of us at our house.

May have already been mentioned, but Covonia Bronchial Balsam, the OTC one, it's my favourite for coughs, I find it helps me through those never-ending viral coughs. NOT the non-drowsy version though. Burns as it goes down, it's lovely stuff!

I used to make a grog of honey, a nice amount if whiskey, lemon juice and tea and drink it just before bedtime. I'm not sure if it made me cough less or I was too drunk to notice but it worked for me.

I have to agree with PP...

Night Nurse is the good shit.

I nearly got (psychologically) addicted to it last time though so I have to be careful. I was swigging it from the bottle. Not a good sign!

I googled whether it was possible to get addicted to it and there were quite a lot of results of people in the same boat!

I find that 5ml of oramorph 10 minutes before bedtime works wonders. Prescribed alongside morphine for the pain caused by my cancer but it's the only thing that stops me coughing for long enough for me to fall asleep.

@Coughmedicinedoesntwork how long have you had the cough? Do you need to see your gp?

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cough/

As far as I remember, it can have higher infection risk though, as it suppresses the body’s ability to cough out the bacteria.

There used to be an excellent one called Pulmo Bailly but needless to say that is no longer sold.

NyQuil is fantastic. We got bad chest infections in Florida in yr 2000 and it got us through our holiday. I smuggled a couple of bottles back but eventually the use by date expired.

Sucky sweets are helpful. Not awesome for your teeth but the sucking suppresses the cough.

If Robitussin Dry Cough is still available it has one of the ingredients of Nyquil in. Another ingredient is paracetamol which you can take separately but the final ingredient is something a bit like Nytol but different which you can't get that in the UK.

No other country police their medicines quite as over the top as the UK.

We can't even buy cocodamol (or anything else with Codeine) without a prescription in Australia. So it could be worse!

Our own government guidelines recommend against taking any kind of cough mixture as there's not enough evidence that they work.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/popular-cold-flu-medicines-could-29293360

That's on the endangered ban list too

Years ago I had a friend who told me about her mother's drink problem. She arranged for Mum to see a hypnotist as all else seemed to have failed. I saw her a month later. How did it go? Oh, she's off the drink, but drinks 3 bottles of Night Nurse a day.

My FIL was a hippy in the early 1970s and he said they used to buy Codeine Linctus at the chemists if nothing much else was available when they wanted to get off their heads. They called it 'Coddy'. A whole bottle along with a pint of cider.

Whiskey and stone's green ginger wine sorts OH out. When he has a cold.

Kings ginger liqueur is the dogs bollox if you like ginger. Add a squirt of lemon and hot water honey if you like

https://www.thekingsginger.com/our-recipes/kings-penicillin

A square of dark chocolate helps with a cough.
It contains the same natural ingredients as cough mixture such as theobromine.
Treat yourself to a bar and that should help.

Loads of cough medicines are the same ingredient just a different manufacturer.

Benylin chesty night has the same ingredient as night nurse and Nytol.

Benylin chesty day time, Robitussin chesty and Covonia chesty are also all the same.

The best thing to do is vaporub on the chest, a decongestant nasal spray to stop any post nasal drip, plenty of fluids, the jakeman sweets in the black bag and chloraseptic throat spray

I live in Canada now and our doctor never recommends cough remedies. A spoon of honey 2-3 times a day helps best.

Every time I visit family in America, I bring back 2 or 3 bottles of NyQuil and there is another one which is absolutely potent and knocked my 24 stone uncle out with one dose when he had covid! It's so much better than the stuff we have here. Take it for 2 days and you're sorted.

@QueenOfHiraeth
Thanks, great info, I'll look out for Robitussin! NyQuil I found a bit trippy. My old boss used to extol it's efficacy & smuggle it back from his NY trips but I didn't dare ask him to be a 'mule'.

There was a thread a while ago about NYC holiday and where to shop most of the posts were recommending meds to buy and bring back.

What does Vicks on the feet achieve? Rather than the chest, I've never heard of this

You need difflam spray