I usually have a stockpile of cold medicine at home since I am prone to catching one. The one you can buy from the shelf has a decongestant called “Phenylephrine”. It usually comes combined with painkillers and caffeine. A great combination to tackle all the cold symptoms. If you try to buy from online, this is what you will get.
Another decongestant is available in the market, “Pseudoephedrine”, but you won’t find it on the shelf. You will find it behind the counter of the Pharmacy and need to consult with the Pharmacist to get one. They will sell you only one box at a time.
What’s the difference? Phenylephrine doesn’t work while there is some evidence of Pseudoephedrine working. Anecdotally, I have tried both and can confirm Pseudoephedrine worked quickly. Phenylephrine, on the other hand, took a few days at which point it’s ambiguous if the medicine or my natural immune system did the work.
Why do we have a medicine on the shelf that doesn’t work? What’s the history here? I skimmed through some articles to understand what’s happening and here is my (probably inaccurate) TLDR of the situation:
Pseudoephedrine used to be the default decongestant. Then some people started to use it to make drugs (meth) so the government took it off the shelf to behind the counter and limited its sales. This however meant lower profits for pharmaceutical companies, so they created an alternative chemical and somehow passed the FDA’s testing. Due to bureaucracy, it took years to prove the ineffectiveness and only recently the FDA started looking into it.
So now you know. Next time, buy Pseudoephedrine from the Pharmacy if you have a blocked nose. All the big brands have this already. They are just behind the counter.