There are several possiblities to cleanse,
herbs, ion cleanse or even better just a master cleanse.

Good about coughing into the crook of your arm though- I mean we shake hands and touch doorknobs and phones and keyboards and and and.

Seems VitC won’t help much during a cold, but dosing up before you get something reduces the duration of the cold.

And coming to work sick without SARS-style masks is not cool.

what medical data do you have that proves this?

Also, Rob is a tool.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! :D

As a generalisation the dirtiest people I know are the ones who have the least amounts of coughs and sneezes, while some of the cleanest ones who use antibacterial everything seem to get quite regular colds.

From what I’ve read and heard elsewhere I don’t think it’s just me that has noticed this trend either.

First of all, virii like cold weather no more than you do, less so really since it tends to decrease the metabolic rate of their hosts and therefore decrease their rate of spread. Either way, virii have no affinity for cold weather, it is simple the change in behavior related to this weather that increases their transmission.

As for the assertion that “old fashioned hand scrubbing” is better than an alcohol-based gel: wrong. Hospitals are moving to these for a reason, and they know more about infection transmission than you do. Specifically I would point you to “Zaragoza, M and Salles, M, et al. Handwashing with soap or alcoholic solutions? A randomized clinical trial of its effectiveness. Amer Jour of Infec Control. 27(3):258-261.” which showed that soap and water scrubbing reduced colony-forming bacteria by ~50% while alcohol-based gels reduced the bacteria load on hands by more than 80%.

So: if you’ve handled a public doorknob or two, your hands are most likely “dirty” (or at least dirty enough that you shouldn’t be touching your face with them, or your phone or computer, because sooner or later you’re going to touch those things and then touch your face, forgetting about the doorknob). Ditto if you’ve handled money, or the office coffee pot, or etc. If you open doors with your sleeve over your hand or bring an extra paper towel back from the bathroom, you’re fine. Otherwise, you have hands that are at least a little dirty on the microbial level. They’ll never be completely clean anyway, but you can at least reduce the risk of picking things up and/or passing them around.

I’m not saying, “LIVE IN FEAR OF GERMS!” – they’re everywhere, and many are neutral or beneficial. I AM saying to use common sense about how microbes are transmitted. So: if you want to avoid antibacterial gels and creams, at least cover your hands when touching doorknobs and other frequently-handled “public surfaces”, and wash your hands after messing with money, especially money you’ve just been handed by a cashier.

Two things can be very helpful from several perspectives, in the winter: Emergen-C drink packets, which get vitamin C and electrolytes into your system quickly, and Gatorade, which also does the electrolyte thing. Both are very helpful if you’re feeling dehydrated (cracked lips are a good clue) or have actually gotten sick. The Emergen-C should work about the same way that orange juice does, but isn’t as sugary.

The “mild flu” reaction to a flu shot isn’t psychosomatic; it’s just a mild and common immune reaction to the vaccine. It’s mentioned and described on the CDC’s information sheet about the vaccine. I get the reaction, and it’s been my excuse for not getting flu shots the last two years. Unlike some other respondents to this post, I don’t “refuse the shot and never get sick” – I get sick anyway whether I have the shot or not. But most people cannot differentiate between a bad cold and actual influenza, because they’re both viral. I have a headache, low fever, sore throat, body aches, and mild swelling and pain at the site of the injection, all of which last three to four days. I don’t think that people who have never actually experienced this reaction – which I would frankly rather not suffer – should be labelling it as psychosomatic.

Since reading the CDC info, I have decided to start getting the shots again. After refusing one last winter I was sick three times in as many months, vs once all winter as I have been in the years when I got the shot. (Therefore, I suspect that I have still caught colds in the winter, but have avoided most flus in the years when I’ve accepted the shot.) The flu shots are helpful, though not a panacea, if you are sickly. If you are generally healthy and rarely get ill, you may wish to just suffer through any flus that you get.

But don’t be one of those people who never admits that they’re ill and drags themselves into work anyway and coughs all over everything while claiming to be “fine.” (Clearly, you can’t be sick, because you “never get sick,” because you believe in mind over matter.) Seriously, you’re just getting everyone else sick, including maybe the people who are not as healthy as you and will be knocked on their butts for a week or two no matter how well they try to take care of themselves. (I’m not bitter.) It’s a matter of microbes, closed environments, and recycled air, not “mind over matter.”

As far as the handwashing, a couple of different opinions have been expressed. The minimum hand-washing has been described (food prep, bathroom, before eating, etc), but it’s also true that you should never touch your face with dirty hands. In this case, antibacterial gels and creams (I prefer antibacterial lotions) can be really helpful. But as far as washing your hands, plain soap, with lots of warm water and friction, works very well, actually better than a 5-second wash with antibacterial soap and cold water.

I don’t think that anyone should have to search out and link complicated studies about this information. Most of it has appeared widely. Stuff that’s more related to questionable, opinion-centered alternative medicine is another issue. I don’t think a “detox cleanse” is really going to do that much for you except perhaps give you a lingering aftertaste of dandelion root or, even worse, black walnut (have you TASTED that stuff. my god. it is like unto death, only less nice.) Most of the rest of the advice given in the original post is pretty sound… following it certainly won’t HURT.