Who hasn't suffered from a head cold?  I don't know if it was because of the problems I had with my sinuses but colds always made me feel terrible.  I dreaded the onset of winter because I knew that I would likely go down with two or three bad colds and it would take me two to three weeks to get over them.  About 40 or so years ago I read about a treatment involving the use of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) popular with many people in Germany.  It seemed a bit off-the-wall so I never pursued it.  But twenty-seven years ago, when I moved to Florida, I started getting bad colds in the summers.   I know that doctors say that the belief that cold weather can cause colds is an old wive's tale.  That’s true, the causes of the common cold are viruses.   However, is it possible that cold temperatures lower our resistance to the virus and enables them to more easily overcome our immune systems?  If so it means our mothers were right - going suddenly from a warm building out into the cold and getting chilled does increase one’s susceptibility to catching a cold.  And the reverse – does the shock of going from the hot humid Florida weather outside into cold dry air-conditioned enclosures enable the cold virus to more easily attack?   I like to work outside in my garden a lot and I have noticed that sometimes if, in a moment of forgetfulness or haste, I go into the house, dripping with perspiration and exhausted from the heat/humidity, then the next day I’ll have that stuffy nose and scratchy throat which used to be symptomatic of a forthcoming cold – but I no longer suffer from colds as previously.

 

I believe the reason I no longer suffer from colds as I once did is because about fifteen years ago I came again upon reports about using hydrogen peroxide to treat colds.   Basically, in 1928 a Richard Simmons M.D. came up with theory that cold and influenza causing viruses enter our bodies through our ears.  His theory was discounted by his peers.  Then, apparently, in 1938 the Germans did some further research on it with promising results.

 

If I feel that I may be going down with a cold (I won’t list the symptoms – we all know only too well what they are) I put my head sideways on a towel on the kitchen table and put half a teaspoonful (actually I use an eye dropper) of ordinary 3% hydrogen peroxide in my ear.   I leave it in there for about three to five minutes and turn my head over and do the other ear.   According to what I’ve read, one should leave it in the ear for five to ten minutes but I find that it tickles (from the bubbling) so much that three to five minutes is all I can manage.  I also suck a few honey or cherry flavored zinc lozenges.  Need some more information?  Click these website links: Hydrogen peroxide and colds here:  http://tinyurl.com/y8nee4 and zinc lozenges and colds/flu here: http://tinyurl.com/5ztou or you can Google it yourself.  Also, if I think I’m getting a cold I irrigate my nasal passages with the saline solution as described previously (to go to the description click the sinus link* at the bottom of this page).

 

I can’t speak to the efficacy of the hydrogen peroxide treatment for influenza because I haven’t had the flu for 45 years and in any event, since the introduction of the flu vaccines I get a shot every year.  I haven’t had a bad cold for years and neither have my relatives and other people I know who have adopted this treatment.   I’m the first to admit that since there are a couple of hundred number of cold causing viruses I may have been exposed to a fair number of them in my lifetime and have now built up an immunity to them.  Also, I acknowledge that there may be a placebo effect at work.  But, so what?  It’s cheap, easy to do and it works.  I hope it works for you too.