Phenylephrine for colds and allergies don’t work, FDA panel says (opens in new tab)

It's available over the counter in the USA, too. You do have to show ID.

Not anywhere in the US as far as I know, but even the requirement of showing ID is ridiculous. What has it accomplished? And how many people got tricked into buying the useless stuff that's 10x easier to purchase?

I know it is no longer available in Colombia, prescription or not.

Sorry.

"can no longer be bought without advance planning so that you can get to a pharmacy during open hours and have time to stand in line"

e.g. no real hope if you realize allergy nonsense is happening on the way to or from work

In the UK ‘Sudafed’ (the brand of decongestants) is available off the shelf, but doesn’t contain pseudoephedrine. There is a different ‘Sudafed’ branded coloured box that you can get from behind the counter by asking someone, that does contain pseudoephedrine.

I find it funny that “things you need to cook meth” are such common knowledge among normal people.

Breaking Bad sure had a deep influence!

The problem with blood vessel constriction medicines, is the body tends to very quickly adjust to their presence. Things like “decongestant nose sprays” are known for being traps, they work a few days, and then one needs an ever increasing amount to achieve the effect. And if one stops using them, then they’ll be worse off because their blood vessels will over expand again without the chemical present, resulting in congestion even after the original cause is gone. It then takes time to ween off the effect, during which the exact problems you mention occur. Same thing with “redness eye reliever” found in eye drops.

Basically, you shouldn’t use these sorts of things for more than ~2 days, but that is not well communicated with consumers.

The better you feel, the more likely you are to get better sleep.

Good, restive, sleep helps your body heal from most anything while the reverse, a lack of sleep, will always wreck your health.

There is zero nobility, or reason, for people to suffer through a cold.

Yes, but if people treat the symptoms then carry on with their normal life, they risk spreading the virus to everyone else. Those "Soldier on with Codral" ads were really messed up.

In at least some cases, the symptoms are part of the body's attempts to fight the sickness - fever for example, which raises body temperature, making it more hostile to the pathogen.

Since most colds are caused by viral infections, and we don't have a lot of anti-viral meds... there isn't much to do but wait for your immune system to figure out how to beat the invaders. But no one ever got rich on "return to the mean".

Phenylephrine for colds and allergies DOESN’T work.

Yes, I’m sure.