I’m the first person to tell you not to believe everything you read on the Internet. For every useful piece of information, there’s a Nigerian price lurking right around the corner. But when you’ve found something so unbelievable, so fantastical, that it must be obviously a joke –and it’s not– this must be (further) shared with the world!
For quite a few years, I’ve been dealing with a random illness: I cough. Not just a little, and not all the time, but most definitely all winter long. It gets so bad that there are times when I’ve nearly passed out, broken a rib, had vocal chord spasms, and contemplated my own mortality. It sucks. The only things that lessened the severity were scotch and hot liquids. It should be noted that scotch actually heals any number of afflictions, but in this case letting the scotch coat (and burn…) the back of my throat made for a few cough-free minutes of bliss.
This year, the coughing started fast and built up in just 2 weeks to the point where I couldn’t get a full sentence out without at least 2-3 pauses for jagged coughing fits. I’ve made multiple trips to the doctor to figure out what’s going on. Two years ago, I was told I had whooping cough (!) and was put on Prednizone (a steroid…) to reduce the effects. It didn’t help…
This year I was told I had a “winter allergy” not unlike hay fever sufferers deal with each spring. Mine was just, you know, different and winter-like.
What makes this whole thing truly unbearable is that you can’t sleep. When you feel shitty from coughing all day, and everything hurts because of it, getting a whole 2 hours of sleep each night doesn’t really help.
This brings me (back) to that Internet ephiphany I promised you. After talking with a few people, they all suggested getting a humidifier and taking allergy meds like Zyrtec. I did both of those things, and they definitely helped. But the cough was still keeping me up at night and it made the days only slightly more bearable.
Then I started Googling. All the legit medical sites (WebMD) offered no additional useful advice. Then I stumbled upon an Asian cooking site that had two suggestions. One reasonable, one ridiculous.
First they suggested brewing up some ginger tea (with their own provided recipe…). Easy enough, definitely helped coat the throat. But the next suggestion was surreal: Get some Vick’s VapoRub and apply it generously to the soles of your feet at bedtime. Put on a pair of socks, and you’ll have an incredible night of sleep.
For anyone who’s ever used Vick’s VapoRub, it’s a pungent, slimy mix of menthol and camphor. It’s old-lady smell. It’s hospital smell. It’s not a pleasing aroma that dances delicately across one’s nose. And seriously, putting it on my feet??!? For help sleeping??!?!?
Holy fuck. It worked!!! Â Without exaggeration, I had the best night of sleep I’ve ever had. Not to bias or jinx the experiment, but I was well caffeinated — roughly 3 cups of coffee and a Coke were floating around inside me. Normally that’s enough to have me up all night. And the coughing would surely be enough to keep me up if the caffeine didn’t do it.
When I woke up this morning I felt refreshed — as if the night’s sleep was actually beneficial. I’m guessing this is the way it’s supposed to be. But seriously, I slathered VapoRub on my FEET based upon the advice of a website, and it worked.
It’s a world gone mad.
