I have a routine when I feel the first signs of it:
- Drink at least 64 oz of water that day, and the day after it. I might even end up with a liter of water when I'm done.
- Take a tea of ginger, lemon, and some airborne/emegency c stuff twice that day.
- A nice, long shower... washing my hands real good to start with, then saline-rinsing out my nose, gargling hydrogen peroxide, brushing my teeth and rinsing with mouthwash, washing carefully around my eyes and washing the skin on them away with lots of water, a gentle rag, and soap, and then washing my hands again and washing the rest of my body really good.
- Throat drops.
- Humidifier.
- Soup and rest for dinner.
Usually that knocks it out pretty good. If it doesn't, I just use regular day-quil and symptom-management medicine like numbing throat sprays and humidifiers and saline whenever I start to feel stuffed up. I don't bother with elderberry and stuff like that, I didn't find it helped as much as washing really good and it's way more expensive than throat drops which tend to have the same shit in them.