Do you know the feeling? You’ve caught a cold and you just want to hide yourself away. And there are so many places where you could have been infected: at work, in school or in the kindergarten. Once you’ve caught the infection, the results are a sore throat, a cough, a runny nose and sometimes a more or less heavy headache and fever.

The question is, are antibiotics always the right response? Antibiotics are highly potent medicines that are only useful against bacteria – not against viruses. There’s no point in using them for a normal common cold, because more than 9 times out of 10respiratory infections are caused by viruses. It’s only once that the cold has established itself that bacteria can begin to spread in the mucous membranes. And in this case, antibiotics are indicated. If you want to know for sure if bacteria are the trigger you can use the Veroval® self-test“Do antibiotics help”. After only 5 minutes you have certainty.

Prevention instead of medication
The best solution is, however, not to catch a cold at all. Here is advice some to help prevent an infection.

1) Wash your hands regularly and – when possible – disinfect them!
In fact, thorough hand hygiene is the most important factor when you want to avoid viruses. Next to using soap, disinfection after washing is recommended, for example with Sterillium®. Hand hygiene thus prevents viruses from reaching your mouth or nose.

2) Use the sauna regularly!
A strong immune system can cope more easily with cold viruses and better ward them of. This is why using the sauna regularly is recommended: the temperature changes from hot to cold strengthen your defences.

3) Try to avoid stress!
Learn to deal with stress better. Especially in everyday life, it is important to take a break from time to time and to get enough sleep. This is also crucial for a strong immune system.

4) Do sport or go for a walk!
Do sport or go for a walk on a regular basis. Physical activity will strengthen your defences!