So it’s been a ridiculously busy week for me and I’ve been nobly fighting off the beginnings of a cold for several days now.

My battle plan is simple: at first signs of a cold, I drop an Airborne in a small cup of water, wait until it stops fizzing and drink. This vitamin-packed tablet always seems to stave off a cold for me if taken early.

I’m sure I read the fine print at some point in my life. But somehow the “take 3 tablets maximum” instructions got garbled into “take as needed.” Or maybe they changed the fine print from the time that I first started taking it to now. It turns out I may have overdosed on magnesium yesterday, as a result, and there may be some kidney stones coming my way due to the overdose of vitamin C. And worst? I woke up this morning with a sore throat and what feels much more like the middle signs of a cold, despite my regimen.

Drats!

Brits have their own version of an Airborne-type fizzy tablet called Berocca, which appears to be very similar – although theirs is marketed not as a cold remedy, but as a remedy for those living fabulous, urban, fast-paced lives. You take a Berocca before and wake up the next morning hangover-free. It is amazing (and for the record, Airborne does work similarly). Whether Berocca works to fight off the beginnings of a cold, I have no idea.

Have you taken Berocca or Airborne? Do you like it?