As the common cold season continues, many college students are self-treating illnesses for the first time. With endless aisles of over-the-counter medication, it can be overwhelming for students to know what will actually help.
Accidentally overdosing and taking medication that doesn’t help relieve the symptoms are some of the biggest concerns when self-medicating.
To better understand these risks, Dr. Charlie Yingling, dean of the Orvis School of Nursing, discusses what students should know when self鈥憈reating symptoms.
Find more answers here!“For common colds, there’s no drug that will make you get better faster,” Yingling continues. “Cold and flu medicines do not cure you — they manage symptoms to make it more tolerable.”
There is concern that students may double-dose on cold medicine without realizing it, as they hope to go to class without any downtime. Without proper rest and a full recovery, the habit of double-dosing can lead to more severe outcomes, such as accidental overdosing.
“There is no treatment for viral illnesses other than managing symptoms and supporting the body as it fights off the illness,” Yingling said. “Many over-the-counter remedies do not have strong clinical value, and simple measures like hydration and humidifiers often work just as well.”
Simple solutions first
Some home remedies include honey and lemon juice to soothe a sore throat. For a cough, topical treatments such as vapor rub and a running humidifier can help reduce symptoms. These treatments are often the most manageable first line of defense before over-the-counter medication.
Classes of cold medicine
There are five key ingredients that go into over-the-counter medicine in one variation or another, including decongestants, antihistamines, cough suppressants, expectorants and pain relievers. While these medicines help relieve symptoms, it’s important to note some ingredients can come with side effects and have long-term consequences.
“It is a good exercise to walk through the pharmacy. Most of what's on the shelf is simply regroupings of those same five groups of drugs in various pills and liquids,” Yingling said. “At the end of the day, whatever product, be it Theraflu, DayQuil, NyQuil or anything else, is essentially the same arsenal of symptom medication, just remixed and repackaged into different colors and flavors.”
Expectorants
Guaifenesin is the key ingredient found in Mucinex.
“The data on guaifenesin, from the 1960s when it was originally generated, suggests that simply being hydrated is just as likely to relieve mucus secretions as taking guaifenesin,” Yingling said.
Cough suppressants
The cough suppressant that's most widely available is dextromethorphan (DM).
“While dextromethorphan does have a modest cough suppression effect when a person has a relentless cough, so can a vapor rub and a humidifier,” Yingling said.
Decongestants
“Phenylephrine is a decongestant that has no clinical value when taken by mouth. There are some products that are produced with phenylephrine as a nasal spray, and those do give some temporary relief of nasal and sinus congestion,” Yingling said. “Its related medication, which is only available by signing it out from a pharmacist, is pseudoephedrine, and pseudoephedrine is more commonly known as Sudafed. This is a medication that really does relieve nasal and sinus congestion.”
Pain relievers
“Many multi-symptom products contain pain relievers, or analgesics, which widely include acetaminophen,” Yingling said.
Antihistamines
“Antihistamines are very helpful for people with allergies. They tend to dry out the nasal passages and relieve symptoms of nasal itchiness. They can't technically reduce congestion, but they can dry out our mucous membranes,” Yingling said. “Drugs like diphenhydramine or doxylamine are antihistamines that are often added to nighttime cold medicines, largely to give the benefit of their sedative effect.”
Acetaminophen concerns
A lot of over-the-counter medicines include acetaminophen. This can be a concerning ingredient when taking more than one over-the-counter medicine, as this can lead to an accidental overdose. It can also be concerning for those who take acetaminophen constantly for pain relief and for those who regularly consume alcohol. A better option would be ibuprofen, found in Advil and Motrin. It’s not as heavily metabolized in the liver, and therefore, it does not compete for access to those metabolic pathways in the same way that acetaminophen does.
When talking about an acetaminophen overdose, it feels like an extreme occurrence. However, the symptoms don’t always present as threatening and most people don’t realize they have taken too much.
Accidental overdose
“If a person were to take excessive amounts of Tylenol, an extreme presentation would be jaundice. They would notice a yellowing of their skin, yellowing of their eyes, that would be indicative of significant liver damage, which is what we worry about with acetaminophen,” Yingling said.
“Milder symptoms from using too much acetaminophen might be related to gastrointestinal side effects, a sense of fullness in the abdomen or a sense of abdominal discomfort, or nausea.
“Unfortunately, for acetaminophen toxicity, there's often not any severe symptoms that would drive someone to the emergency room," he said. "It's often when someone's further along in toxicity where they're seeing severe presentations of liver damage, that they say, 'Something's wrong: I should go to the emergency room.’ When they're already quite far along in having toxicity from the medication."
The proper procedure if you accidentally take too much over-the-counter medication is to first call your healthcare provider.
Main takeaway
“To the best of my knowledge, there is no novel product out there that is distinct and separate from the other myriad cold and flu products,” Yingling said.
"The next time you get the common cold, don’t forget that you may already have useful remedies at home. If you find yourself in the drugstore, it is important to carefully read the labels of what you're picking up. It’s important to note which ingredients will help relieve the symptoms you have and make sure you aren’t repeating ingredients by taking multiple over-the-counter drugs at once.”
About the professor
Charlie Yingling is the dean of the Orvis School of Nursing at the 夜色视频, and a clinician scholar known for his work in advancing nursing education and health equity. A first鈥慻eneration college graduate, Yingling earned his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Loyola University Chicago and completed both his master’s as a family nurse practitioner and his Doctor of Nursing Practice at the University of Illinois Chicago.
