I am proud to say that in spite of my weird sleeping and eating habits I am not a sickly person. In fact I have never been admitted in a hospital. But I’m not a robot so of course I also get sick sometimes. Just last week I contracted sore eyes on the day of the Visayas Blogging Summit and then as if that wasn’t enough I also had itchy throat and continuous coughing bouts right after the heritage tour. This caused me to just stay at home the whole week after the wrap-up of the three major events that we’ve been planning for almost a year.
Thankfully, the pricey medicine I bought for my sore eyes was effective and in just three days my eyes were back to normal again. What bothered me most were the coughing bouts. It rained on the morning and the afternoon of the heritage tour so I guess that precipitated to my coughing ordeal. To alleviate the cough I turned to the cough syrups that my mother always has at the ready for me and my brothers. I had to choose between two over-the-counter cough syrups – Robitussin and Ascof Forte. They were also mentioned here in this very informative article: Politics of Cough Medicine: Synthetic versus Herbal Cough Medicine.
If you have noticed, pharmacies and drug store shelves are crowded with cough syrups that promise speedy and often non-drowsy relief without needing a doctor’s prescription. Robitussin is one of the most popular and top-selling cough syrups out there and is supposedly one of the most effective. Robitussin has Dextromethorphan which is a cough suppressant drug. We’ve been using Robitussin ever since I can remember. But recently my mother has added Ascof to our medicine cabinet. I have to admit I was a little hesitant to try Ascof Forte (Vitex negundo L. Lagundi Leaf) at first because I have always been taking Robitussin. But my mother has been using it to treat my brothers’ coughs and she says that it works like a charm and she was convinced that it is a better cough medicine option because it is herbal in nature therefore it is really safe for the body. So yes my mom convinced me to take Ascof and what do you know it was indeed effective and I was able to get a good night’s sleep without having to endure the annoyance of the coughing bouts.
I don’t know if you guys have also noticed the extensive marketing techniques of cough syrup brands today. They are actually starting to become downright dirty because I have seen one of the major brands attacking the herbal products. They imply that cough syrups which are herbal in nature are not really effective at all. In my opinion they are doing this type of marketing technique because the herbal medicines are becoming more popular and people right now prefer medicines that are herbal in nature instead of the synthetic ones.
Therefore I believe that advertising actually influences us on how we choose the kind of cough medication we should take but at the end of the day we are still the ones who decide what cough medicine works for us and what med is really effective. So which do you prefer, synthetic or herbal medicines? I would really love to hear your opinion about this too guys so please feel free to leave me a comment below. Stay healthy everyone!
