While most colds can be effectively treated at home, you should call your doctor if:

• You have a headache and stiff neck with no other cold symptoms. ( Your symptoms may indicate meningitis.)
• You have a headache and sore throat with no other cold symptoms. ( It may be strep throat. )
• You have cold symptoms and significant pain across your nose and face that doesn’t go away. ( You may have a sinus infection, which requires antibiotics. )
• You have a fever above 101 degrees Fahrenheit ( adults), you’ve taken aspirin, and the fever isn’t going down.
• Your child has a fever above 102 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Your cold symptoms seem to be going away, but you suddenly develop a fever. ( It may indicate pneumonia, which is more likely to set in toward the end of a cold )

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When cold season arrives, doctors’ offices fill up with people searching for a “cold cure.” Unfortunately, modern medicine doesn’t have any medication that is effective against viruses, including the more than 100 viruses that can cause the common cold. Antibiotics, such as penicillin, don’t work against cold viruses. “The first thing you shouldn’t do,” says David N. Gilbert, MD., “is go to the doctor’s office and get a penicillin shot. They’re ineffective, expensive, and they expose you to unnecessary side effects.”

OK, if the doctor can’t help, what about all those “cold remedies” touted on television and radio? Surely they must work.

Not really. Some cold experts believe that popular cold remedies may actually inhibit the body’s immune responses as they suppress cold symptoms. All of your cold symptoms are part of your body’s natural response in its battle against the viral invaders. To stop or suppress those responses may actually make your cold hang on longer.

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Unfortunately, modern medicine hasn’t invented a cold vaccine that will protect us from becoming infected by the hundreds of cold viruses just waiting for an opportunity to take up residence and multiply. As a result, getting at least one cold a year is “pretty inevitable,” says Stephen R. Jones, M.D. But if you get a cold, you don’t have to pass it on. By learning some simple techniques, you can keep your cold to yourself.

Most authorities on the common cold are now convinced that cold viruses are passed in two ways—by direct contact and by viral-filled droplets from the nose being inhaled by others ( the so- called “aerosol method”). The direct-contact method works something like this, says David N Gilbert, MD.: “You get a virus in your nose, then blow your nose, which contaminates your fingers with the virus, and then you shake hands with someone. They touch their noses and get the cold.”

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