I'm sure you've noticed that for the past year (perhaps even longer), grocery stores and pharmacies have been keeping cold products in glass cases, requiring you to hunt down someone with a key that can get the product for you. The problem is that many of the popular over-the-counter cold medications contained a decongestant called
pseudoephedrine, and it was a high-theft item because of it's ability to be used to create crystal meth.
Well, Vicks has released new formulations of both NyQuil and DayQuil, removing the decongestant ingredient from NyQuil entirely, and replacing it will a far less effective decongestant in DayQuil. They both contain an antihistamine called
doxylamine succinate, but as far as my nose can tell, it's not doing a damned thing. That's right, my Thanksgiving Holiday trip to the cabin has resulted in my whole family catching what we refer to as,
the crud.
Back to my rant ... When I asked Annie to pick up the NyQuil, it hadn't occurred to me to have her check the ingredients or look for something better, and it hadn't occurred to me either. We'd always picked up the same product because it worked, dammit. This? This doesn't work worth shit.
So this is just a warning to my friends: check the ingredients list on your cold meds, and make sure that in contains things that, you know, work. If you need a decongestant, make sure you check the labels for your "old standby" and be sure it still has one. (For what it's worth, the new forumulation of DayQuil contains a small amount of phenylephrine as a replacement decongestant, but at roughy a sixth of the dose of the pseudoephedrine, and is fairly ineffective.)
For what it's worth, Advil Cold & Sinus, as far as their webpage is concerned, still contains pseudoephedrine. And it still works. Go figure.
Edit: Clarified some details.
