If you have oregano oil, this would be a good time to take it, a couple drops in a capsule along with a base oil (olive, grapeseed), if you have lemon oil or peppermint oil, add about 5 drops of them as well. Make sure your oils are safe for consumption.

Up your dose of vitamin C, and take it 3 times a day. But like Charlie said, once it has come on full-strength, you're almost too late and have to go through with it.

I would say the best thing is to up the vitamin C dosage, if the chewables are not so strong, get yourself a bottle of pure ascorbic acid. Avoid sweets, esp. sugar, etc. which help to feed the bacteria. Try a zinc lozenge.

Some good herbs for coughs are licorice, slippery elm, mustard (as in a mustard pack on the chest), cherry bark, marshmallow root, ginger. They help to liquify and dislodge the mucous. Ginger should be included in the herb teas you make, and peppermint will add a nice flavor. Licorice is very strong, just use a bit, and boil it for 10 minutes (it's a bark and needs to be boiled to extract the healing qualities).

You said you're taking echinacea? Is this a tincture form? Also, echinacea is a preventative herb more than a curing herb. It helps to raise your levels of white blood cells, but is not so helpful once you're sick.

Hope you feel better soon! My daughter just came down with a cough, so out with the herbal and oil rememdies over here too!

Hugs!

PS, if you get a fever, let it run, as long as it doesn't go too high or for too long, it is helping to burn up the virus in your body. About antibiotics, I think a cold is a virus and therefore antibiotics are pretty much useless anyway. They help to combat secondary infections, but don't help with the actual virus itself.

> It's kinda hard to beat what you've got if
> you've already got it. My experience with
> colds and flus is to take the things that
> you've taken at the FIRST sign that you're
> going to come down with something, and beat
> it in it's preliminary stage before it has a
> chance to take hold and spread. Well, it
> works for me that way. I'll wrap up and stay
> warm, read, watch tv, sleep, maybe take an
> aspirin...Once I've got it though, taking
> the herbal and naturopathic route doesn't
> seem to do much for me. I kinda have to
> endure it. The bigger guns of Nyquil and
> Dayquil and antibiotics help to make
> enduring it easier. I'd skip the party,
> myself, and stay wrapped up if I was really
> getting sick.

> I'd > It seemed it was a small sinus
> infection,