Rhinospray® to the rescue!
We spent last weekend in the Bay Area for Gil and Becky's wedding. On Sunday, I started coming down with a cold and was feeling miserable. It was late at night and I didn't feel like going out to the drugstore to get a decongestant.
My mom remembered that during a trip to Europe last year she started getting a cold and picked up a nasal spray in the airport just before her flight home. The medicine had probably expired, but I was welcome to try it:
I tried to read the label, but everything was in German. Rhinospray sensitiv bei Schnupfen. Wirkstoff: Tramazolinhydrochlorid... I needed to know: how many times should I spray? How often? Are there any dangerous side-effects?
Alas, I don't speak German, yet I really needed to clear my nose. So I gave it a shot. And viola! Like magic, I was breathing clear again. I no longer cared what the active ingredient was; it could've been arsenic and I'd still use it again.
Today, I learned from netdoktor.de that the Wirksamer Bestandteil (active ingredient?) is Tramazolin.
Whatever that is.
Michael -- it's probably available over here on prescription; there's lots of such nifty drugs that are now generic in the EU (the drug companies are a lot less powerful over there).
Every time I go home, I get asked to buy a crapload of over-the-counter meds that cost 3 times as much and require a prescription here ;)
Posted by Justin at July 17, 2003 11:00 AM