We may all suffer from common cold throughout the entire year especially during winter and spring seasons; some of the associated symptoms include nasal congestion, runny nose, cough, fever, chillness, headache, and general discomfort. As to influenza, it is often widely spread with symptoms transmitted just like common cold except that it happens at a specific period of a year.

The causes of common cold

1. Uncomfortable weather, surroundings, virus infection.
2. Weakened immune system.
3. Traditional Chinese medicine doctors prescribe different herbs for common cold according to TCM pattern diagnosis, which is often divided into wind-cold and wind-heat.
   1. Wind-cold type:  patients may suffer from symptoms like chillness, headache, nasal congestion, runny nose, watery sputum, and cough. Pink tongue, floating and tight pulse.
   2. Wind-heat type: patients may suffer from fever, headache, thirstiness, nasal congestion, yellowish sticky nasal discharge or sputum, sore-throat, or red-swelling throat, red tongue, floating and rapid pulse.

Two major distinctive features of the two the pulse and feeling thirsty or not.

Prevention and health care in daily life

1. Physical training likes jogging, swimming, or Tai-chi; the amount of exercise varies with patients’ age and physical condition.
2. Avoid direct exposure to wind.
3. For the environmental hygiene, maintain the circulation of your house and have sufficient sunlight into your house. Avoid going to public place when there is a cold spreading; if you must go out, wear a mask over your nose and mouth.
4. Have plenty of rest and drink a lot of water and exercise regularly, and wash your hands frequently.
5. Intake more vegetables and fruits; eat light diet that contains low salt or sugary foods. Avoid cold beverages, greasy foods, stimulating foods (coffee, hot pepper, and concentrated tea), nuts, dry foods, and radish and melon.
6. Either quit smoking or reduce the amount of cigarette.
7. Rinse your mouth with saline water during seasons of common cold.
8. Don’t over boil herbs because it could destroy effective components of the medicine.
9. Avoid wind-blowing after taking the medicine; stay under the blanket to sweat out a cold. Have some porridge. Please note that over-sweating is not a good sign.

Treatments and diet for wind-cold type of common cold

1. For symptoms like headache and chillness, boil Dou-fu with black soy and ginger.
2. Cook green-onion with Dou-Fu for nasal congestion and general soreness.
3. Cook egg soup with green-onion.
4. Ginger soup for dispelling wind and dissipating cold.
5. Fish soup with ginger for dispelling wind and cold.

Treatments and diet for wind-heat type of common cold

1. Radish juice with ginger for acute pharyngitis or throat soreness.
2. Ro-Han herb for moisten lung and engender fluid; Ba-Shan herb, mint candy, tree mushroom soup with lotus seed, red-bean soup, or green-bean soup for cough.
3. Accept proper treatment by the licensed doctors as soon as possible when there are symptoms/signs of common cold.