Home remedies
Home remedies are mainly used to treat the accompanying symptoms of the common cold as the actual pathogen. In colds, the pathogens causing the illness are usually viruses. A virus-killing effect could be proven only to the zinc, whereby the opinions divide themselves over it whether zinc is to be used as household remedies.
However, onions, garlic, camomile tea, salt water (for steam inhalation!) and ginger are available to alleviate the symptoms. Except for salt water, all of these remedies are said to have anti-inflammatory and calming effects, which can be used for sore throats or mild earaches, for example.
With camomile tea and salt water, the little ones can inhale by breathing in the hot steam. However, care should be taken not to use water that is too hot, in order to minimize the potential danger of additional irritation of the bronchial tubes. The anti-inflammatory tubers can be used in crushed form for example for earaches and are given into the ear from the outside.
They can be boiled down however also to a broth, which can be drunk then one also, in order to treat an irritated neck with sore throat. Definitely no! For people who would like to believe that the onion has a positive effect on the course of the disease, it may have this effect. From a medical point of view, however, this measure is completely pointless. Apart from the smell of the onion, nothing will change in the air in the room.The anti-inflammatory active ingredients present in the onion can never reach a sufficiently high concentration in the air to have an effect on the baby’s cold.
Homeopathy
As a homeopathic remedy for a beginning cold, the active ingredient aconitum is often used. However, this treatment should be clarified with a physician in order to find out whether the homeopathic remedy is really suitable and to exclude a potentially dangerous course of the illness. Infections with which the physical immune system cannot cope without help usually require more than just homeopathic support in fighting the pathogen. Homeopathy should therefore be understood as a complementary measure rather than as the sole therapy.