Can you take benadryl and advil cold and sinus together

In the past, whenever I’ve come down with a cold, I’ve usually reached for one of those all-in-one cold drugs or a decongestant and some Tylenol.

But Jennifer Ackerman, author of a new book on the common cold called Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold, argues that’s not the way to go at all.

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In an interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, Ackerman said that, after all the research she did for her book, her treatment of choice for the common cold is now ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and a “first-generation”, sedating allergy drug like Benadryl or Chlor-Tripolon.

Ackerman bases her self-treatment regimen largely on the advice of Jack Gwaltney, one of the leading experts on the cold.

One of the reasons Benadryl plus Advil works, Ackerman says, is because of the weird way in which the cold virus behaves.

Unlike the flu virus, which actively damages human cells, cold viruses don’t actually do much direct damage to our body. Most of the symptoms we experience are, instead, a result of our immune system’s over-reaction to the virus — much like with allergies.

Allergy drugs like Benadryl tamp down our body’s natural immune response to the cold virus, giving us some relief. But it’s important to use an older, “first-generation” allergy drug like Benadryl, says Ackerman, because newer allergy drugs like Claritin don’t have the same effect on cold symptoms.

I picked up some store brand ibuprofen and allergy meds and gave them a try instead of my usual routine. (A quick cost-saving note: There are plenty of store brand versions of Benadryl. Just look for pills that contain Diphenhydramine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in Benadryl.)

I must admit, I was a bit skeptical at first — in part because Benadryl (and its store-brand versions) isn’t marketed as a cold remedy.

Overall, though, the Benadryl/Advil combo seemed to do a good job of getting rid of that tickle in my nose, reduced my sneezing more than my usual medication routine and made me feel a bit better. One negative, however, is that Benadryl — unlike the newer allergy meds — makes you drowsy, so I felt a bit out of it.

After checking out cold expert Jack Gwaltney’s own website, I see he advises adding a decongestant to the medication mix if the anti-allergy meds alone don’t get rid of your nasal congestion — which is something I might now try.

A quick word of warning: These are treatments for adults, not children. Only give your kids drugs that are approved for children.

While Ackerman believes drugs like Benadryl can provide some relief for colds, she says there’s no evidence to suggest that other cold remedies — like echinacea, Vitamin C or zinc lozenges — do much good.

First, there’s little evidence such remedies actually “boost your immune system” as they claim. And as Ackerman explains in this New York Times piece, even if they were immune-boosters, that wouldn’t help because it’s your body’s immune system that is making you feel miserable in the first place:

It seems counterintuitive, but there it is: People with more active immune systems may be especially prone to cold symptoms. So getting a cold may be a positive sign that your biochemical defenses are working normally — a glass-half-full view of getting the sniffles.

Ackerman also isn’t a fan of all-in-one cold medications (like the ones I used to take), because they include a number of different active ingredients instead of being targeted at specific symptoms. There’s also a concern such drugs can lead to overdoses because people sometimes take a cold drug and then take some Tylenol (acetaminophen), not realizing that the cold drug itself contained acetaminophen.

As for avoiding getting a cold in the first place, Ackerman says the best advice is still to wash your hands regularly.

Most of us get colds, she says, because we touch a surface that has the virus on it and then touch our face, delivering the virus directly into our bodies. While not touching your face would help, too, Ackerman said this is a lot harder than people think — most of us touch our face one to three times every five minutes. So hand-washing is the best way to go.

What about you? What do you do to avoid getting a cold? And what treatments do you use to reduce your symptoms when a cold hits? Post a comment and let me know.

And be sure to check out my earlier post on whether parents of small children get sick more often.

[ Photo by trumanlo ]