Dry Skin Care for Colds Can Help You Look and Feel Better Faster
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Colds and flu are hard to resist during the winter months, and they take a toll on your skin. Fevers, chills and constant nose blowing dehydrate the body and cause dry skin that can become red and cracked. To combat the effects of cold and flu, you need a two-pronged approach. First, do everything you can to get rid of the cold or flu as soon as possible and second, protect your skin from the effects of dehydration with a good dry skin care treatment such as a shielding lotion.
The best thing you can do to shorten a cold or the flu is to let it run its course. The symptoms - fever, mucous and coughing - are actually part of your body's natural defense system. Taking drugs to alleviate these symptoms interferes with the process and can prolong the illness. The heat of a fever, for example, is designed to kill the viruses that cannot live in an environment above normal temperatures. Coughing and sneezing are the body's way of expelling mucous that, if allowed to stay in the body, can carry bacteria into the lungs and the other organs. So, rather than taking drugs to get rid of the symptoms, try your best to bear with it and chances are you'll get better sooner.
Unfortunately, being symptom free sooner has its drawbacks: you may spend a couple of days in bed - although bed rest is a good thing when you're sick - and you are more likely to get dry skin. However, that, too, can be limited with good dry skin care.
As more moisture is lost through the skin than by any other means, a shielding lotion is the perfect remedy. A good shielding lotion bonds with the surface layer of the skin to form a protective layer that locks in natural moisture. In fact, a recent Transepidermal Water Loss (TEWL) study found that shielding lotion increased the protective layer formation properties by more than 50 percent within one hour of application. Keeping the moisture in the body will also help combat the illness; it's hard to get better when you're dehydrated.
In addition to prohibiting moisture loss, using shielding lotion for dry skin care has another major benefit: the protective layer helps prevent the absorption of bacteria that could make your illness worse.
There aren't too many people that don't get at least one cold or bout of flu during the winter and, even when the worst is over, it can take days or weeks for your skin to recover and start looking normal again. Letting the illness run its course and using shielding lotion for dry skin care will get you feeling better, and looking better, faster.About the author:
Author, Gloria MacTaggart, is a freelance writer who contributes articles on skin care for Gloves In A Bottle, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.glovesinabottle.com.