Pneumonia affects about 900,000 Americans each year, and 18,000 people 65 years and older die from it, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Michael Hogue, a pharmacist who is on the Board of Directors for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), tells us how to protect ourselves against this potentially deadly illness!
Cold and flu season has made its grand entrance… and it’s not taking its last bow until spring!
Don’t be caught with a bare medicine cabinet if one of the bad guys sneaks into your home. Stock it now with the essentials to give you and your family comfort and relief the moment symptoms strike. And, head on over to your nearest CVS Pharmacy to get a flu shot, if you haven’t already. You need a new vaccine every year since the flu strain is different from winter to winter. The shot may not protect you completely against the flu, but it can make it a lot more tolerable!
The symptoms of a cold or flu include “runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, sneezing, mild-to-moderate fever, cough, headache or body aches, and some mild tiredness,” says Papatya Tankut, registered pharmacist and vice president of pharmacy affairs at CVS Health, who advises having these six products at the ready:
The combo pack of softgels includes doses for day (non-drowsy formula) and night with acetaminophen and dextromethorphan to help reduce coughs, fever, aches and runny noses. The vital active ingredients also come in new Cold & Flu Relief Single Serve Cups, which can be used with a Keurig machine to deliver them warm.
These lozenges have a mixed berry taste and include a mild dose of benzocaine, a local anesthetic, to soothe and calm an irritated throat.
Stuffy noses lead to mouth breathing, which can dry your lips. Keep them hydrated all day long with dimethicone (a silicone-based lubricant), Vitamins A, C & E, as well as protected from the sun with SPF 20. And don’t ever lick your lips! “Saliva evaporates quickly, leaving lips drier than before you licked them,” says Dr. Lawrence Gibson of the Mayo Clinic.
Sometimes during the winter, lots of us get colds and start coughing, and coughing, and coughing, until our throats become unbearably irritated.
Known as tissus in the medical community, “a cough is a sudden reflex humans and many animals have to clear the throat and breathing passage of foreign particles, microbes, irritants, fluids and mucus, a rapid expulsion of air from the lungs,” according to medicalnewstoday.com. We’ll run to a drugstore, and try to determine which of the countless syrups, lozenges, sprays and pills will help give us relief, without making us either hyperactive from the added sugar and high fructose corn syrup, or completely groggy.
Stop pondering and make a beeline for honey, a completely natural remedy that has been used for centuries to reduce or relieve symptoms of the common cold. Human use of honey has been traced to about 8,000 years ago, when it was depicted in Stone Age paintings. Reported to have an inhibitory effect on about “60 species of bacteria, some species of fungi and viruses, honey is a by-product of flower nectar and the upper aero-digestive tract of the honey bee, which is concentrated through a dehydration process inside the beehive,” according to the National Institutes of Health. Often called “nature’s cough medicine,” honey has the ability to sweetly coat dry, irritated throats and suppress coughs. (more…)
Cold and flu season is approaching, and it’s better to plan ahead than to wait until you’re already sick! We’ve partnered with CVS Pharmacy to make sure you know the best ways to keep you and your family healthy in the coming months.
If you’re in warm weather this winter, lucky for you! But for many of us, we’ve entered the brrr season.
We’re more prone to colds in the winter because the cold virus (rhinovirus) replicates faster in colder weather, according to numerous studies. We also spend more time indoors and are in closer contact with others, and their germs. Disruptive symptoms (which can seem to go on forever) include “runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, sneezing, mild-to-moderate fever, a cough, headache or body aches, and some mild tiredness,” says Papatya Tankut, registered pharmacist and vice president of pharmacy affairs at CVS Health.
The holiday season is upon us, and that means it’s flu season! To stay in tip-top shape throughout the winter, we joined the #StayHealthyWithCVS campaign, sponsored by CVS. These tips and tricks for fighting the flu are nothing to sneeze at!
