Let me state clearly and up front that I am not a qualified medical practitioner so my words of advice are to be considered cautiously and not undertaken by children or anyone with health issues. However, after a lifetime of enduring the brutal head colds inherent in being Canadian, I’ve finally nailed the definitive solution to the problem and I’m now going to share this wisdom with you, the lucky readers of BOOMERBROADcast, absolutely free. Step right up and I’ll let you in on the secret that could wipe out entire aisles of cold medications in our nation’s drugstores and undermine this highly profitable but ineffective sector of the pharmaceutical industry.

I’ve just successfully emerged from a brutal head cold and once again, my formula proved effective. While my treatment is not a cure, it does mitigate the downtime and greatly reduces the duration of the symptoms. Remember the old saying that a cold is seven days coming and seven days going? Rather than spend up to fourteen days in various stages of misery, I’ve reduced the duration to a mere three days.

First of all, the virus requires three days to incubate in our warm, juicy passageways, building its hideous nest when we’re not even aware of it. I’m not a scientist, but once again, experience has proven this to be true. It’s like calculating a pregnancy due date, only instead of counting back three months from conception, you count back three days from when symptoms first appear. I was at the grocery store late Tuesday. The usual supply of disposable handwipes beside the grocery carts was empty so I grimaced and took hold of the cart au naturel but with a great deal of concern. Exactly three days later, i.e. Friday night, I woke up with that thick, scratchy feeling in the back of my throat and that snuffly feeling that we know all too well is heralding an oncoming bitch-of-a-cold.

Here’s the important part. This is the sequence of treatment that I guarantee will reduce your sickness from fourteen days to a mere three days.

Day One: Prepare your nest/bed. Lay out the following items on your bedside night-table, like a surgeon’s instruments:

1. A giant box of tissues. I prefer Scotties or Puffs ahead of Kleenex which I find too linty and deteriorate too quickly. We need industrial strength weapons.
2. A plastic grocery bag looped over the drawer knob of night table for disposal of above tissues.
3. Large glass of water (perhaps with some fresh lemon squeezed in) with flexible straw and a tube of lip balm to battle dry lips and mouth resulting from constant unavoidable mouth-breathing. Nasal passages are out of commission.

That’s it. Put on a clean nightgown or PJs along with a pair of warm fuzzy socks as feet tend to get cold when we have a cold (go figure?). Climb into bed, pull the covers up to your ears and be prepared to spend the next three days in bed. The battle begins.

DO NOT TAKE ANY COLD MEDICATIONS during this three-day hibernation. When I’m going through it I find myself wondering if this is what heroin withdrawal feels like. You will feel like total shit; you’ll have killer sinus headaches above your eyes; your throat will be dry and your nose will expel liquid like a blown fire hydrant. You’ll probably have sore glands down the side of your face around your ears and it will be hard to even open your eyes so reading, watching television, checking e-mail or other semi-recreational uses of the downtime are out of the question.

The essence of this suffering is that your body is trying to eliminate the evil virus that has invaded your perfect body. It can only do this by turning you into a hacking snot machine, trying to evict the nasties. Do not undertake any household chores (that’s what husbands and kids are for). Every ounce of mental and physical energy you possess must be channeled toward eliminating the villain. Keep hydrated with soup, liquids and fruit.

Day Two: Stay in bed. I find it helps to change the pillow cases and your nightgown about the middle of Day Two. You’ll feel marginally better to be relieved of all the sweat and crud you’ve accumulated. And, as stated above, no matter how tempted you are to take cold medications, (all they do is mask the symptoms making it harder for your body to flush itself clean) avoid over-the-counter remedies. I must confess at this stage I took one lozenge (Cepocol) to spare my husband the sound of the persistent coughing I was experiencing in the middle of the night, but I could have accomplished the same result with a spoonful of unpasteurized honey which would have been a healthier and more natural alternative.

Day Three: Stay in bed. You’re on the home stretch. It’ll be harder to pass the time by sleeping on the third day but you must resist the urge to get up and drag your ass around the house trying to do chores. It’s crucial that all of your energy must be directed toward driving out the demon. It’ll still be hard to visualize that there’s an end in sight, but I know this to be true.

Day Four: Eureka! You will awaken on the fourth day and rise like a phoenix from the ashes, once again feeling like a human being. Ninety-eight percent of your cold symptoms will have disappeared. You will still feel the tiniest bit of nasal snuffle but overall, you will feel “cured” and can once again go out and face the world.

When I was still working, I endured the peril of head colds several times over the course of each winter. I dragged my ass to the office under the misguided assumption that my work was vital and the company couldn’t survive without me. I effectively passed the virus along to all my co-workers via coffee machines, door handles, the photocopy machine and other office paraphernalia and successfully managed to merge several brutal colds into one long seasonal snot fest. Retirement has given me the luxury of test-marketing my treatment program and it has proven successful several times. If I’d done this starting fifty years ago, I could have spared many people, most importantly myself a lot of misery and downtime.

So, to sum up, my treatment is simple, effective and free. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3. That means spending three full days in bed, using no over-the-counter remedies and do not deviate from my tested regimen. The next time you feel a head cold coming on, try my program and let me know how it works for you. Just don’t give big pharma my address as they may put a contract out on me.

Click the “Follow” icon to receive automatic notifications

of new BOOMERBROADcast postings.

Feel free to share this blog post via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail

or other social media links below.