Managing Common Symptoms

Helping You Get Better Faster

Tips from our medical providers to help you can manage your symptoms so you can get back to feeling like yourself. 

If you are having trouble breathing call 911. If you have a fever over 101°F, or you have a fever that is not responding to Tylenol (acetaminophen) or Advil (ibuprofen), call us at 520-621-9202  or after-hours at 520-570-7898.

Understanding & Managing Your Seasonal Symptoms

Our Nurse Practitioner Lisette, walks you through the physiological connections between sore throat, cough, ear pain, and other seasonal symptoms. She gives tips on:

  • what to look for
  • how you can best manage your symptoms
  • what you can do to stop irritation from becoming an infection
Antibiotics do not fight infections caused by viruses.  
These include colds, flu, most sore throats, bronchitis, and even some sinus and ear infections. 

Symptom Relief

Many over-the-counter medications are combination or multi-symptoms medications. We recommend individual products so you can target the symptoms you have, but if you're using a multi-symptom product and an individual product in addition, read ingredients to make sure you're not accidentally getting a "double dose."

The main things you can do for general symptom relief are to:

  • take Acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol®) or Ibuprofen (e.g. Motrin® or Advil®) or Naproxen (Aleve®) for fever, aches and/or sore throat
  • get plenty of rest and stay hydrated

For Nasal/Sinus Congestion

  1. Try elevating the head of your bed.
  2. Steam or mist inhalation.
  3. Nasal irrigation with normal saline (salt water)
  4. Decongestant pill – pseudoephedrine (e.g. Sudafed®)
  5. Decongestant nose sprays such as oxymetazoline (e.g. Afrin®) or phenylephrine. Use for no more than 3 days.
  6. Guaifenesin (e.g. Mucinex®) – may help some people.

For Cough

Especially if it’s keeping you awake at night:

  1. Cough suppressants such as dextromethorphan (e.g. Delsym®)
  2. Cough suppressants with both dextromethorphan and an antihistamine (e.g. Nyquil®) may help one sleep at night.

For Sore Throat

  1. Gargle with warm saltwater. Mix 1 teaspoon of salt into a large glass of warm water and gargle several times/day.
  2. Ice chips, sore throat spray (e.g. Chloraseptic®), or lozenges
  3. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or naproxen to relieve pain or fever.