How long will a cold last

First, rub it on your chest or throat. Then breathe in the medicated vapors with the familiar scents of eucalyptus, menthol, and camphor to help relieve your cough symptom from a cold.

Nasal congestion can make it hard to focus on anything besides your breathing when you have a cold. It is a fast-acting nasal spray decongestant that relieves sinus pressure and shrinks swollen nasal membranes so you can breathe more freely.

Cold and flu prevention methods are similar because both illnesses result when you are exposed to a virus. You can protect yourself from getting the common cold by following these CDC guidelines to help you reduce your risk of getting a cold 1 :. To protect others around you from getting the common cold, you should follow these CDC tips for cold prevention 1 :.

Common Colds. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Published February 11, Accessed June 18, Cold Versus Flu. Published December 30, Accessed June 19, Suffering from a cold? Published March 18, Home Remedies: Self-help for sinusitis. Accessed June 16, Auditory closed-loop stimulation of EEG slow oscillations strengthens sleep and signs of its immune-supportive function. Nat Commun. Sleep and immune function.

Commissioner O of the. Is It a Cold or the Flu? Prevention, Symptoms, Treatments. Published online February 11, Please try again. Something went wrong on our side, please try again. Show references Common cold. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed Feb. Sexton DJ, et al. The common cold in adults: Treatment and prevention. Saper RJ. Clinical use of echinacea. Pappas DE. The common cold in children: Management and prevention. Upper respiratory tract infection.

Mayo Clinic; Natural Medicines. Drutz JE. Acute pharyngitis in children and adolescents: Symptomatic treatment. Recommendations for prevention and control of influenza in children, Sullivan JE, et al. Clinical report — Fever and antipyretic use in children. Reaffirmed July Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Renaud DL expert opinion.

Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. See also Avoid rebound nasal congestion Breast-feeding and medications Can chicken soup cure a cold? Chicken soup: Can it treat a cold? Cold and flu viruses: How long can they live outside the body? Cold or allergy: Which is it? Cold symptoms: Does drinking milk increase phlegm? Cough Vitamin C and mood Does zinc work for colds? Echinacea: Is it effective for the common cold? Exercise and illness Fatigue Hand-washing tips Have a cold?

Common sense rules Have a cold? Fight back with humidity Have a cold? Fight it with fluids Headache Honey: An effective cough remedy? How well do you wash your hands? Humidifier care Humidifiers Is antibacterial soap a do or a don't?

Nasal Cleaning Nasal congestion Neti pot: Can it clear your nose? Neti pot solution: Can I make my own? Plugged ears: What is the remedy? Runny nose School health tips Stuffy nose? Vitamin C: Can it prevent colds? Warm-mist versus cool-mist humidifier: Which is better for a cold? When to Take Your Child to the E. But just because it's longer doesn't mean that your cold was more severe. How long a cold lasts really just depends on your body's response to it.

For instance, someone who's immunocompromised might have a cold that lingers longer, according to Dr. If you're in that post-viral syndrome stage, you're probably not contagious anymore, according to Dr. But if you're still in that stuffy nose, sneezy, full-blown cold period, you should assume you're contagious. Wearing a mask will cut down on cold transmission.

Keeping up with hand hygiene in the office is key, too—especially if any mucus from your nose or throat have touched your hands.

That "would be the way to limit spread without having to totally disrupt everybody's life with having to stay home with a cold," Dr. Research isn't clear on that.

There's been some studies that show if you take echinacea, zinc , or probiotics right at the start of your cold that that could shorten your cold, but the results aren't super clear, Dr. Instead, try taking medicine like Tylenol or Robitussin. They won't actually make your cold shorter, but they can help make you feel better in the short-term. And because a lot of cold symptoms—like runny nose and postnasal drip —are generated from the sinuses, Dr.

Wasylyshyn's advice to his patients who are dealing with a cold is to focus on clearing those up. That means using decongestants like Sudafed or Afrin. Wasylyshyn says he personally swears by a neti pot to stop his colds in their tracks. But medicine's effects vary person to person, and what works for you might not work for someone else, and vice versa.

OK, so maybe you go back to feeling totally fine 10 days after your cold started. But if you have kids under 6, you might feel as though their colds last longer—as if they just always have a cold. And according to Dr. Wasylyshyn, that's a pretty normal feeling for parents to have. Well, the average child who is under 6 has six to eight colds per year.

And those colds—that last up to 14 days—tend to be clustered between September and April. That works out to kids having one cold per month, which means that from September to April, the average child is sick with a cold half of the time.