February is nearly over, and if you've made it through this winter without a cold, stay away from me. I am finishing up a cold right now. My symptoms began on Valentine's Day, and they ran the gamut of a low fever (99-100), sore throat, coughing, and nasal congestion. Right now, I'd be healthy if I could only lose this cough. Such are the effects of viral acute bronchitis (diagnosed myself with the help of WebMD. If I am still coughing on March 7th, I'll seek medical aid.Over the course of this cold, I took a generic version of Advil Cold and Sinus for the first time in what I calculated as years. Ibuprofen isn't recomended during pregnancy, and psudoephendrine runs the risk of reducing milk supply for nursing mothers. Although I'm still nursing, my Angel Pie is keenly into her toddler years, I felt that I could risk a lower milk supply for some relief. I took it for about two days, and at first it felt wonderful, but then I found that it was causing a dry, itchy spot in the back of my throat that was making me feel like coughing, so I stopped.
I'm down to an occasional cough right now, but days ago, the cough was incessant, and I was pretty desperate to find something that would let me sleep through the night. Isn't waking up coughing the worst? Not only was I waking my husband, I was also waking my Angel Pie! So I took to combing the internet in the wee hours of the morning to find a fix. It is suggested that rubbing Vicks Vaporub on one's feet and covering with socks was a good remedy. It's all over the mom boards on various parenting sites.
My first instinct was to fact-check, and indeed, there are a few sites addressing it.
Snopes.com
Geekosystem, "No, Rubbing Vicks Vaporub On Your Feet Does Not Prevent Coughing"
UrbanLegends.About.com, "Does Vicks VapoRub on Soles of Feet Relieve Coughing?"
Buuuut...anecdotal evidence here. I noticed that I don't cough as much when I'm fiddling on my phone. That got me to thinking maybe Vicks works as means of distraction? Closer to what the UrbanLegends.About.com article mentions, maybe it's a counter-stimulus? Laying in bed, thinking about the tickle in your throat, hoping, "Don't cough, don't cough" ? Of course you're going to cough! But maybe if your feet tingle, that distracts from the tickle, and you can use that to sleep. So, I thought I'd give it a go! I had a jar of Vicks Vaporub and some socks, and it was time to go to sleep. So, did it help? For me, unfortunately, a flat no. I didn't feel anything on my feet--no warmth, no tingle from the menthol, nothing. As there was no point of distraction for me, then, all I had to focus on was the throat tickle, and of course I coughed. Again, this anecdotal. Perhaps if someone had more sensitive foot skin than I have, it can help, but for me, it was a bust.
I am concerned, however, about the moms prescribing this for their babies with coughs. I understand wanting to be able to do something--my Angel Pie is currently dealing with a nasal congestion, or as we call it, a terrible "boogie nose". I hate nasal congestion the most for my baby, and I think I've written about it before. If my Angel Pie can't breathe through her nose, she can't nurse, and that makes the one thing that brings her comfort when nothing else does, it makes it not work. And then she cries, which makes her nose run even more, and it becomes a vicious cycle of my baby just not feeling well. She is under two years old, though, and that means that Vicks Vaporub is not the answer. In this article from Parenting.com:
The ingredients in Vicks VapoRub can irritate the airways and increase mucus production. The effect isn't huge, says Dr. Rubin, but it can be significant in infants and young children (under 2) who have very small airways to begin with. And when those pipes are already inflamed from a cold or other infection, a little bit of extra inflammation and mucus may narrow them quickly and severely.And I'm sure the last thing we want to do is make our little ones feel worse. I'd think that even if we're putting Vicks on a baby's feet, the baby is still inhaling and thereby getting the negative effects from those vapors. I'd personally recommend not trying it and sticking to a steamy bathroom and nasal aspirators. Hang in there--colds generally only last about ten days. My Angel Pie could possibly be on day eight of her cold, so maybe we're close to the end!
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