Note that oral phenylephrine has been deemed ineffective by the FDA, even though it’s common, so maybe use a different decongestant, specifically pseudoephedrine
Whenever I see claims about this, I always want to push back, because phenylephrine works quite well for me. Depending on how congested I am I might have to go slightly above the recommended dosing schedule, but usually I can take the amount recommended or less and it will keep my sinuses clear.
I understand it doesn't work for everyone, so it makes me suspicious that the studies may be seeing issues like RCTs on SSRIs do, where the drugs work, but which drug works for which person is highly variable, so they seem ineffective in an RCT but seem highly effective in practice once the patient-drug matching process is done.
Ibuprofen
From my understanding, taking Ibuprofen during a cold may be a disservice to your body, since it reduces inflammation, which is a key part of immune response. So most of the time when I'm sick (like you, also annoyingly often) I charge through the pain.
Similar thing might be true for paracetamol, but I am wildly uncertain on this claim, and have looked into it for only a few minutes.
I think this all stops being true if your pain is preventing or interfering with your sleep. In that case, my guess is that taking Ibuprofen is beneficial, since sleep is so essential for recovery, and you want to maximize sleep time/quality when sick.
I've heard that using zinc lozenges a lot can permanently negatively affect your sense of taste. Did you look into that?
I get sick a lot. Getting sick sucks. Maybe there are cheap and easy ways to get sick less?
I asked LLMs[1] to read all the relevant literature reviews and figure out what supplements or medicine I should be taking to get sick less and make it suck less. I looked through the recommendations and did a little additional research to make sure the AIs weren’t making egregious mistakes, but I am not an expert—this should not be viewed as credible medical advice.
Here is the quick list of steps I am currently taking or think might be useful to others.
If you work on important problems then getting your coworkers sick is bad for the world (in addition to bad for them). If you are going to work while sick, consider doing it from home. If you work from the office, you should wear a mask, wash your hands frequently (and especially before touching a bunch of communal stuff), and cover your cough/sneeze (not with your hand).
Appendix on zinc lozenges
Zinc acetate Lozenges.
What: When you start feeling any symptoms at all, or when you’ve been exposed, start sucking on zinc lozenges. Your goal is to coat your mouth and throat in zinc for basically as long as possible. So you should be sucking each lozenge for 20-30 minutes (don’t chew), and then don’t drink or eat anything for another 20 minutes. Aim for 5-7 lozenges in a day, once every two hours or so.
What to buy: The particular lozenge probably matters a lot! The lozenges you want are big and slow to dissolve, Amazon link, manufacturer’s link (note that Amazon is frequently out of stock, and the manufacturer gives discounts for larger orders, I might buy 4 bottles at a time).
Evidence basis: Literature review pointing to the fact that they might reduce cold duration some. The main counter evidence, an RCT finding either similar or worse recovery than placebo.
Notes:
Here’s a ChatGPT chat with an initial research report.