Cough Drops that Will Actually Soothe Your Sore Throat

I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I've decided that I'm either sick (my brother is sick) or it's the air quality with all these wildfires going on. As most people do when they're sick, I whined to my mother. My grandma joined in and said she had gotten a box of Lumen'swatermelon cough drops from Family Health Services. Then I realized, when have watermelon flavored cough drops ever helped with a sore throat?

Of course, I tried them anyways, desperately trying to soothe the pain, and as expected they did little to help. Honestly, they just tasted like a watermelon Jolly Rancher without the tangy kick. So I decided to compose a list of cough drops that I personally know have worked for me in the past.

My go-to brand is Halls and after doing some research on their ingredients, I found out why. The active ingredient in Halls cough drops is menthol, which has a soothing-cooling effect on the body. I also learned that my favorite flavors that work the best have a larger amount of menthol than the flavors I find less effective. The more menthol, the better I feel.

Information gathered from here.

Cherry Halls

Nasty old cherry that is indeed bearable, only because it works. Cherry flavoredHallscough drops have 7 mg of menthol.

Honey Lemon Halls

Honey lemon Halls (the flavor I'm using now) also has 7 mg of menthol. I find this flavor more bearable than cherry, but some believe cherry works better.

Strawberry Halls

Strawberry Halls has only 3.1 mg of menthol, this is my last choice.

Ice Peppermint Halls

Ice Peppermint Halls has 10 mg of menthol. This is one of my favorite flavors along with the Honey Lemon, Spearmint, and Intense cool.

Mountain Menthol Halls

Mountain Menthol Halls has 6.5 mg of menthol. This one also works pretty well in my opinion.

Spearmint Halls

Spearmint Halls has 5.6 mg of menthol. I like this flavor because it has a gentle minty taste to it and although it doesn't have as much menthol as the others, it works pretty decently.

I'd Also Like to Mention

After researching the ingredients for Halls, I figured I should look up both Luden's andRicola brands. Luden's active ingredient is pectin rather than menthol. Pectin is found naturally in fruits and can reduce inflammation and swelling but I don't think it has the cooling action that menthol does. Because I love menthol's cooling methods, I don't care for Luden's.

Now Ricola has menthol in it but it doesn't have nearly as much as Halls because it has a bunch of other natural ingredients in it as well. Ingredients that apparently work well but not in my book. Compared to the 3.1 mg of menthol in Halls strawberry flavored drops, Ricola has 3.0 mg of menthol in theirs. So the average Ricola cough drop only has the working power of the most mediocre flavor of Halls on this list.

Having asthma I was sick a lot and when I get sick it takes a long time to get over it. Because I get sick a lot, I know what medicine works as I've had a variety. In my experience, Halls is my favorite brand of cough drop. But opinions may vary.