It’s hard to pass a cold without a sore throat, but luckily they usually get better within a Some days,
Sore throat is a common symptom of COVID new type, And of course, many sore throats are caused by a viral cold or flu, so they can be treated at home.
The most common treatment is probably throat lozenges – but do they really work better than sucking on hard lollies?
Why is there so much pain in my throat?
A sore throat can fall anywhere between a slight discomfort to a feeling of “swallowing a descending blade.” Sometimes swallowing is so painful that people start dripping saliva from their mouth instead of swallowing it.
Bacteria and viruses can invade the thin moist skin (mucosa) of the throat. It kills many lining cells and triggers inflammationWhich manifests as redness, swelling and increased discharge.
Nasal infections also cause the thick mucus to move down the back of the throat and cause further irritation. This is known as “post-nasal drip.” A blocked nose causes a reliance on mouth breathing, which dehydrates an already inflamed throat. Ouch.
What do lozenges do?
Lozenges are a solid medicine intended to dissolve or dissolve slowly in the mouth. They contain one or more active ingredients and are scented and sweetened to give them a pleasant taste. Tough sweet pills Hard candies are typically made using sucrose or other sugars, similar to the confection process.
Several active ingredients are added to the lozenges, including antiseptics; Painkiller; menthol and eucalyptus oil; like cough suppressants dextromethorphan and soothing compounds. There are “cough drops” and sore throat lozenges almost the same But these ingredients can have different proportions.
Various brands of lozenges advertise a confusing choice of formulations. It is now more common to see brands with “triple action” ingredients that promise to be anesthetic (to numb pain), antiseptic (to kill germs), and anti-inflammatory (to reduce redness).
Unfortunately, clinical trials that directly compare the benefits of different types of drugs for most common conditions (head-to-head trials) are rarely performed. This is likely due to the added complexity of such trials compared to placebo controlled trials, and the drug research being carried out frequently. drug manufacturer funded of products. Therefore, we have to rely on indirect comparisons instead.
The traditional approach to treating sore throat is to assume lozenges or gargling with antiseptics will ease a sore throat caused by infection.
However, limited trials of antiseptic lozenges (such as Strepsils and Betadine lozenges) produced only one small shortfall Sore throat pain (a one-unit difference in the ten-point pain scale compared to placebo). so they start providing a small degree of reliefAnd the sale continues.
More and more brands are adding other drugs beyond antiseptics to their range of throat lozenges.
impact check
There are few other explanations for the apparent effectiveness of any treatment for self-limiting infections. How do we know if the symptoms or infection will last longer if we don’t use that treatment? That is to say, we would need a control group that did not receive treatment, and a larger sample size to remove the role of chance causing difference.
Anything other than the active ingredient may provide relief. Lastly, sucking on a sweet, hard lozenge can soothe a dry throat by increasing the secretion of saliva. To test this effect, we would need an actual placebo drug – identical in every way except for the active ingredient.
Several well-designed and well-conducted controlled clinical trials suggest that certain active ingredients provide significantly better pain relief than placebo lozenges. These drugs fall into two main groups: local anesthetics (such as benzocaine) and anti-inflammatory agents (flurbiprofen).
a study Benzocaine lozenges, (now offered in many brands of lozenges) compared to placebo lozenges provide quick pain relief (20 minutes for benzocaine compared to over 45 minutes for placebo). More study participants felt relief using the drug, although very few reported complete pain relief.
an orderly research review Nine studies supported the benefit of flurbiprofen lozenges (available in Australia in Strepfen intensive lozenges) for sore throat conditions. In One of the studies reviewedFlurbiprofen produced a greater reduction in sore throat (47%) as well as difficulty swallowing (66%) and swollen throat (40%) in the first 24 hours than placebo.
One of the common sore throat remedies sold in Australia is Deflam, which contains the anti-inflammatory drug benzydamine. One clinical trial There was a reduction of more than two points on the ten point pain scale for three days in those using benzydamine versus placebo.
Are lozenges better than a sore throat spray?
a study Using radioactively labeled medicine demonstrates a more prolonged and complete delivery of the drug into the mouth for lozenges than for sprays and gargles. This appears to be the basis for the claim that sprays are less effective than lozenges.
However, drawing conclusions from such evidence is less accurate than a study that directly compared the effectiveness of different methods of delivery on actual pain. One study compared flurbiprofen and found similar pain relief benefits between the lozenges and the spray.
So the choice of delivery method may be based on personal preference including the taste of the product.
takeaway
Sore throat lozenges and sprays provide some additional relief for sore throat pain, especially those containing anti-inflammatory or local anesthetic ingredients. They are often combined with an antiseptic agent, which may or may not add any significant benefits.
Used as directed, these agents seem to be safe and have negligible adverse effects. These are economical as well and easily available.
But that shouldn’t stop us from using other remedies that we know also soothe a sore throat, such as a small a spoonful of honey,
Senior Lecturer in General Practice, University of Queensland
article was first published Here.
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