On Christmas Eve I got the ‘itch’ in the back of the throat.

The all-too-familiar itch, which, by morning, will certainly be a full-blown sore throat, which will last a day, and then soon morph into a full-blown winter cold.

And that is exactly what happened.

Now, back in college, I used to look forward to colds. I would just take my favorite cold medicine, Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold, and go about my business. It gave me a great little buzz, got me through work and studying, and I was a happy camper. For my college roommate, his treatment of choice was Sudafed. We both capped each evening off with NyQuil.

Well, sometime between then and now, things changed. Stuff happened. Meth happened.

You see, the nasal decongestant that makes all of these products effective, and gives you that nice little buzz – Pseudoephedrine - became a primary ingredient in homemade methamphetamine. Unlike cocaine or heroin, people who liked meth could just go to the store and pretty much get everything they needed to make it off-the-shelf – in some parts of the country, the meth makers would clear drugstores of their Pseudoephedrine cold medicines completely.
The repercussions of this unseemly evolution, for the cold sufferer, were twofold.

First, Pseudoephedrine was replaced in most cold medicines on the drug store shelf with the confusingly similarly named Phenylephrine. Cold medicines could still contain Pseudoephedrine, but they can now only be sold behind the pharmacist’s counter – no prescription necessary, but a picture ID is required and a monthly limit kept on how much you can buy (don’t worry, its pretty generous).

Now, here’s the rub – in my opinion. you really want the Pseudoephedrine. Why? Because it works, and Phenylephrine doesn’t (relatively speaking).

What really stinks is that OTC cold medicines just changed the formula, but didn’t change the name of the product – so now, when you go to the drugstore, you see the same cold remedies that used to do the trick, they just dont work as well. If you pick up a cold remedy at the grocery store, you dont even have the option of getting a Pseudoephedrine decongestant, since there is no pharmacist to ask for it.

So, tonight, after a frustrating experience with some Phenylephrine cold medicines I found in my medicine chest, I drove out to Walgreens in the middle of the night to get some Tylenol Cold Severe Congestion from the pharmacist, and I already feel better.

So, the takeaway from this article is that if like me, you prefer Pseudoephedrine cold remedies, don’t be shy and just ask your pharmacist what hes got behind the counter, you’ll be glad you did.