What are your favorite home remedies or comforts when you're sick?
Despite vaccination, it seems I got the 'flu (not terrible so far).
I have my own non-prescription comforts and remedies for the sore throat, cough, upset stomach, fever, aches, and so on:
- Ginger, lemon, and honey tea
- Ricola cough drops, zinc lozenges
- PeptoBismol or TheraFlu (if I want to be knocked out)
- Scorching hot shower with eucalyptus or lavender oil
- Chicken broth with rice and thyme
- Electric heated mattress pad cranked up to high
There's little peer-reviewed evidence that any of these make a difference in the course of illness. There's marginal data on the effectiveness of ginger as an antinausea remedy, zinc as an immune booster in people who aren't deficient, and eucalyptus, lavender, and thyme oil components as antiseptics/antibiotics/topical anesthetics/cough suppressants. I'll be the first to concede that I practice all these remedies to give me the illusion of control of suffering, and comforting self-care.
I'm curious as to what home remedies others have tried, why, and how effective or comforting you think they've been.
Has a medical professional ever recommended a non-prescription remedy (not counting Tylenol/acetaminophen) or activity to you for a viral or bacterial infection, or told you to stop a home remedy? Did they give a reason why?
Is there a family, folklore, or alternative medicine tradition that you're following?
Does your home remedy make you feel like you're more comfortable and/or in greater control of your health?
Not sure if this technically counts as a “home remedy” but I just chug water for infectious illnesses. Goal is for my urine to be clear the entire time. If it’s not, more water.
You can add electrolytes but honestly given most people’s diets probably not something to be worried about.
You know, I didn't even count that, and I could probably use more water (and electrolytes) since my first symptom was throwing up in the wee hours this morning.
Yeah the electrolytes become more important if you're not keeping food down and more so if liquid is an issue. Good luck, I was hearing that the vaccine didn't catch the big strain this year but haven't fact checked that yet
There's apparently no evidence yet that current vaccines are less protective against serious consequences from H3N2 subclade K. It's just that influenza vaccines don't prevent infections altogether at the best of times, and H3N2 is generally extra nasty for older, very young, and immunocompromised people.
Ah good to know! I appreciate the check. Just been a rough flu season for some folks
I drink hot water all the time.
I enjoy tea, adding lemon, etc etc but like sometimes I just want water.
Spearmint tea generally helps with an upset stomach, although it's not a panacea
Not mine, but a friend of a friend keeps a bottle of Jaegermaester in his fridge. Whenever he has a sore throat, he pours himself a little sip of it throughout the day.
Alcoholism or brilliant? Maybe both?
A common "people's remedy" with a sore throat is to gurgle (is that the english word?) alcohol and then spit it out. Alcohol kills, so it's effective at clearing your throat of germs. But it's not very pleasant.
"Folk remedy" would probably be the term in English off the top of my head.
I haven't tried gargling with alcohol, but I have tried it with saltwater for canker sores, and it definitely does help for those.
There is a reason Chicken noodle soup is referred to as Jewish Penicillin.
The thing is though, one of the reasons it works as a "cure" is because it is full of a) fluids and b) nutrients that your body needs to do its work of fighting off the disease.
It's not that these self-care remedies are going to cure you. It's that it makes being sick more bearable, and as you said, gives you a semblance of control in an otherwise uncontrollable situation. It's as much a mental game as a physical one. Feel better, and I hope to see posts from you on the other side of your illness!
But to actually answer your question, when I'm sick I will pour boiling water over jam or other fruit preserves. The fluids help thin the mucus, and ease my scratchy throat, and the jams/preserves add some much needed easily processable sugars and vitamin C to your body, especially when my appetite is non-existent.
I've heard that both matzo ball and chicken noodle soup are helpful, and it's also probably helpful because of all of the electrolytes. I believe it's down to the fact that a good matzo ball/chicken noodle made from a quality chicken stock will contain salt, magnesium, and calcium dissolved from the chicken bones, as well as the other nutrients and plenty of fluid you mentioned.
Collagen from quality stock probably also helps.
I don't have a recipe but one of my go-to meals when I'm sick is an Indian "rasam". It's a South Indian soup made of tomatoes and tamarind, flavored with spices. My mom makes a sinus clearing spicy chicken rasam that just empties my nose and basically immediately let's me breathe through my nose again. I feel the spices also help clear my throat and I start feeling better soon after. South Indian restaurants near me also offer it so if I'm unable to go to my parents, I'll order out.
There was an occasion when I was feeling feverish and horrible, and went out to a good Mexican restaurant with friends anyway (long before COVID-19 reinforced how stupid and inconsiderate that is). I got a bowl of Mexican chicken soup that I will swear cured me within minutes - lime, cilantro, chilies, cumin, garlic and everything else seemed like exactly what my body needed to rally the immune system troops.
Of course I've never been able to replicate the effect with any Mexican recipe I've found, but I'll look up rasam recipes and make some when I'm feeling better.
Making rasam from scratch does take a while as there's a lot of prep, especially around getting the tamarind ready from what I remember from my mom making rasam. However, I do know that Indian grocery stores do sell a rasam paste you can simply mix into water and it gets you sorta there. You can then season things to your taste and add extra veggies and meat to your liking.
I'm guessing your mom starts with fresh tamarind, which isn't available to me. I just get packaged tamarind paste and guess at the relative proportions of fresh to prepared, usually with decent results.
Pedialyte Ice Pops. Tastes better than just pedialyte and the cold helps with sore throats.
oh god I have so much nostalgia for those from when I was a kid...
The dumbest, most “this is probably doing nothing but it makes me feel better” thing I do is taking a spray bottle of 70% rubbing alcohol and spraying my hands and then huffing the fumes in my nose. I don’t now why but it makes me feel a little better even when I’m miserable. I’m especially prone to doing it when I feel like something may be coming on in the upper respiratory system. Otherwise I’m apt to grab a Ricola and melt that in my mouth for awhile.
When I’m down sick, I ignore the advice about feeding a fever and starving a cold, and I make sure that I eat unless I’m so sick I’m vomiting, in which case I drink plenty of fluids and rest as much as I can.
Since going WFH and doing my shopping online/delivery/curbside pickup, I haven’t had a major illness in five years, whereas I’d get some version of the local crud every three to six months. Granted I don’t have any friends or family in the local area to hang out with, so it’s easier for me to maintain my solitude.
Same. Prevention really is the best cure. I never used to accept flu shots either but I've been keeping up with them.
I need to get mine, though it might be too late for this season. One never knows when one will suddenly need to go into a building for a period of time that one did not plan to enter.
Never too late until you've already gotten the 'flu. If you're U.S.-based, it's still spreading and hasn't peaked yet in most states. As mentioned, the vaccine might not prevent sickness, but you'll recover faster and won't be as likely to wind up in the hospital or get secondary infections.
I definitely don't have a superflu case in spite of taking immunosuppressants, and I attribute that to getting vaccinated.
Hot toddy’s are my go to for any sore throat/cold.
Even if it doesn’t actually work it gives me enough of a buzz to numb any throat discomfort and plus it’s delicious.
Here's one from Hong Kong: CocaCola Boiled Ginger (可樂煲薑）. The true origins are lost to time, but believe to be a combination of homegrown remedy (ginger), plus "foreign invention" sweet syrupy Coke. Sort of combining the placebo effects of two worlds for extra magic. No other pop will do, only Coke. In the 60s, people have a bunch of kids, so when one gets sick, it's a bit of an opportunity to splurge on fancy imported beverage for everyone to have a tiny sip of bubbly. But of course cold things are bad for you, esp the sick, so obviously the syrup has to be boiled first to be effective.
The other is very thin rice congee for fevers. A sort of "starve the fever"....we weren't even allowed rice grains in the congee, and there's no chicken or anything just starch water. It sucked.
If there's no fever, then the congee options are more varied: salted pork or bones or chicken or dried scallops being the most common. By my era, we had a bit more money and I remember sea conch congee as well as abalone congee on rare occasions. (The actual protein either removed or boiled to basically mush, though, because last thing we need is a stomach ache from indigestion.)
Other illnesses: asthma. My sister had it really bad as a small child, almost monthly hospitalization. Parents tried swallows nest, alligator skin and meat, sand worms (dried, cleaned and boiled to heck), all kinds of herbs, Korean ginseng, dried seahorse, and a bunch of stuff I don't remember. Moving to North America cured it for the most part.
I should also mention the wider world of foods to abstain from when having any conditions. If phlegm cough, no sweets or ice. If dry cough, no ice but pei pa koa syrup or honey lemon okay. If itchy skin patch / eczema , no shellfish. If pimples, no deep fried foods. If on period, no cold drinks or anything "cool" in nature such as grass jelly or watermelon or salads or chrysanthemum tea. If intoxicated, no "poison" nature'd foods like crab or durian.
I have a relative who's a Chinese traditional medicine practitioner (acupuncture, herbalism, dietary theory, etc.) and some of this sounds familiar from her exegesis on why it's complementary to Western medicine.
I've peered into the realm of various traditional herbal treatments and there are some medicinal plants that have very useful properties (not least Chinese sweet wormwood, the source for the antimalarial artemisin). But I'm happier with Western practices that take accurate dosage, interactions, and side effects into account. The dietary theories behind "heating" and "cooling", "wet" and "dry" seem fairly mystical, though I'd love to see some reliable studies.
On the other hand, caffeinated, sugary Coca Cola and ginger certainly sounds like an effective way to perk a sick kid up! [Actually, the flavoring oils in Coca Cola do include a couple that are provably medicinal, though who knows what the final chemistry is like with all that phosphoric acid.]
Having previously been in very constant-talking environments (call centers, etc) - I decided to give Pei Pa Koa a try after hearing a voice actor mention it, IIRC. After looking up the ingredients it seemed safe enough to give it a shot. Seemed to work pretty decently for me, though I have no idea how truly effective it was
It's mostly just honey :D it also comes in throat lozenges format and I like all of them. Ricola only works for a short time and my body develops am itchy throat dependency on it. Honey water is too thin and doesn't coat. Whatever the pei pa koa people did they nailed it.
Oh nice. Ricola has the same problem for me. I haven't tried the lozenge form but I'll keep that in mind, might grab a few
My mom boiled Coca cola for us, but I'm not sure if she added anything to it. We got PeiPaKoa for coughs, chrysanthemum tea for fevers (that one really worked well for me), and if we were really sick like the flu, there was this rather awful black herbal stuff she would boil up, and the rock sugar she added really only took the edge off the bitterness. I think my mom was aware of the heating and cooling aspects but I'm not sure how much she set store by them. In midlife she would have me buy various herbal things for her since I lived in the Bay Area, with a million Asian groceries and herb stores. Later in life I think she pretty much stuck with western medicine.
These days I make a nice chicken jook for the husband and I in case of stomach upsets. We get the flu vaccine every year so neither of us has had the flu in many years.
Yeah I'm mostly western medicine person as well but I also subscribe to the hot/cold - dry/wet theory. Eg, I can eat any quantity of lychee and durian (hot) but I gotta go easy on grass jelly, chrysanthemum tea, watermelon etc (cold), whereas another friend who has the opposite temperament would break out in acne or nosebleeds on the opposite diet.
So this is my sick routine, less of a single remedy and more of a routine. And I literally just did this last night. Now none of this is medical advice, it's just what my crazy ass does.
The moment I feel a bit sick I do this:
And of course I'm drinking water like no other.
This has worked for me incredibly well over the years. The idea is that I'm inducing an artificial fever to raise my body temperature up so my body doesn't have to expend that energy to raise it, and that it creates an adequately hostile environment.
I've been told it's dangerous, but frankly people get higher body temperatures in saunas and jacuzzi's and they're not even monitoring their internal body temps.
Not a single person has been able to give me good answer as to why a hot bath is dangerous while a jacuzzi or hot sauna isn't dangerous, the only difference being my intent to raise the body temperature. And not a single person has been able to tell me why this wouldn't work in theory.
But it works and I do get noticeable results. If it doesn't kick the sickness completely, then it greatly reduces it's severity and length.
Very hot baths (as well as jacuzzis and saunas) can be dangerous if you have heart problems iirc, but afaik the biggest risk in a hot bath or jacuzzi is that you faint from the heat or simply fall asleep and thus end up drowning. But to my knowledge there isn't any particular difference between a very hot bath and a jacuzzi on that front.
I've developed an addiction to hot baths this winter, though probably not as hot as yours. Skin dryness is the biggest practical concern for hot baths for most people, tbh, so lotion up well afterwards ig. I recently bought bath oil for the first time and highly recommend trying it sometime. It really made the whole experience very luxurious.
What's funny about this is I think I caught the 'flu from the group of people I was with in a Nordic sauna (170 - 180°F) over the weekend. Yay, cranking up my body temperature to deal with arthritic aches, boo to being around too many humans.
Yes!
I do something similar, except without the theraflu/zzquil since I don't think either of them are available here.
It works very well if you have the time (and self discipline) to do it when it's needed, which is in the first 12 hours or so of symptoms.
It results in very heavy sweating (be prepared with extra pyjamas and sheets) but it also generally eradicates or greatly reduces the illness.
It's not something I'd do casually though - you do need to keep an eye on your fluids and temperature, and consciously monitor how you are feeling during the process and adjust accordingly.
We enjoy a nice hot water bottle when we're sick or it's cold outside.
I've got two cats who've decided to be my hot water bottles as long as I'm in bed and substantially warmer than usual (it's a mutual hot water bottle relationship).
Awww do they usually nuzzle as well, or do you think they're aware of you being sick and are helping?
Hope you feel better soon :)
My theory is that purring has ultrasonic healing properties. As does huffing warm fluffy cat back smells.
They're very aware that something is wrong with the Human Who Feeds, Plays, and Opens Doors. The second I'm done coughing, one or both will be perched on my chest staring at me and sniffing my breath, then licking my drippy nose.
"I still want kibbles and Churu today, servant, be back on your feet soon. Or else."
When I'm sick with a sore throat (only tried with common colds so far), I used to have trouble sleeping because my throat would get dry and I'd wake up from a stinging throat from it sticking to itself, especially if I were to swallow. So what I do now is sleep with a mask on. It keeps my throat moist so I can actually sleep and it seems to cut down the length of my sore throat by at least a day. I think people often use humidifiers for this, but I think masked air is a lot more humid than what I'd want my room to be.
That's a great idea, thank you!
Garlic tea has a high success rate at reducing coughing for me.
What's your recipe?
Boil at least three peeled garlic cloves in water for 15 minutes.
That doesn't sound too extreme, and I'll give it a try, thanks!
Oh. I usually boil them in a little more water than the amount I will drink. So if you're drinking a cup, than a cup of water and a quarter more. I don't know if that is obvious, but is highly concentrated. Not really meant to be a pleasant tea, just medicine really.
Lots of tea recommendations in this thread, but I’ll add that the most comforting tea I’ve ever had during a raging sore throat is the Starbucks “medicine ball.” It used to be an off-menu secret item but it’s now promoted as Honey Citrus Mint Tea. Since I’m not a corporate shill, here’s how to make your own home copycat version.
I'm going to shill for the local tea grower, Light of Day Organics. Their Tulsi Citrus Soother is getting me through the day right now. It's not that hideously expensive on a per-cup basis, and I know exactly what's in it and where it came from.
You've mentioned most of our home remedies, so I'll just add these two:
Vicks is a good one (and an old family remedy), though I find the camphor content strong enough to be irritating to my skin and throat.
Some people can gargle when they've got a sore throat, I've tried salt water gargles multiple times and it just makes my throat more irritated.
I'm glad you've found a Neti pot helpful, but they've been implicated in rare infections and I'm squeemish.
Yes, I've heard of that but haven't experienced it myself. We always use distilled or boiled water, regularly disinfect the components, replace the neti pots periodically, and never share them between people.
With a neti pot, a lot of the infection issues are due to people using unboiled tap water in areas with less than great water filtration. If you boil the water, keeping it at a full rolling boil for a minute plus and then let it cool in a clean, closed container you can be confident that anything that might have been living in that water is quite dead.
No one else mentioned it, so I will.
Netti-pots. I swear by 'em. The minute you notice the start of symptoms, start saline flush of your sinuses with a netti-pot (or standard nasal rinse contraption -- they sell 'em) ... do it 3-4 times a day for the first day or two.
I started using it, specifically as a treatment for chronic sinusitis, works at least as well as mainstream treatment (antibiotics), w/o having to take antibiotics.
But I've come to realize it helps with all colds, flus, etc, even Covid. Sometimes it short-circuits the infection right at the start, and symptoms never get any worse; other times, I do still get sick, but mild and quickly recovered.
I forget where, but there was a significant study quite recently that confirmed this actually does work.
I'm still too freaked out by the brain amoeba deaths (npr) to try them. Which is silly because, obviously, use cooled down boiled water
insideinstead of unfiltered tap. But yeah that's going to be a no for me, dawg. (Edited typo)I want to say 'statistics' here, in the sense that human instinctive risk assessment sucks at it.
Just at a casual glance ... 157 deaths in the US over 60+ years means 1 in 100,000,000 chance of dying from this (in any given year) -- and it looks like the vast majority of cases comes from kids swimming in dirty open water in the southern tier of states, so the actual risk is probably closer to literally 1 in a billion.
OTOH, nearly 4,000 Americans died of flu just in 2023.
... and that's if you don't bother to use properly prepared water.
Absolutely, this is just squeamishness on my part.
If you want a sterile but possibly less effective rinse, you can buy the simply saline bottles that are pressurized with a sterile saline solution. They don't have the rinsing volume of a neti pot, but I do find them helpful. I also keep them around to rinse my sinuses thoroughly if I've had to be around a sick person at work.
Ginger for nausea works wonders for me actually. Especially if i get migraine-induced nausea. I have a ginger chew or two and it doesn't take long and I feel settled.
Otherwise, a vicks-like nasal inhaler, hot tea, soup, plenty of hydration, and plenty of other things already mentioned here.
I quite enjoy being sick with the flu (or similar), it's the only time I can really relax, drop everything else and just be (yes, I probably should work on that).
For me it is an "eat anything I can imagine might be decent"-time and a time I like watching a lot of tv-series.
While I also enjoy the fever-cycle I dont like my sheets drenched in sweat, so this will be my home-remedy: clean sheets. Stock up on clean sheets (or get help washing them often), it feels so much more dignified and healthy to wrestle a fever, etc with clean sheets.
I completely understand that "I'm too sick to be responsible for anything" relief. I also get a weird dizzy, druggy euphoria from a high fever which makes everything else seem not too bad.
I'm not looking forward to the 3 a.m. fever break when I wake up practically swimming in my own sweat, but it usually means I'm getting better.
That's an interesting take, and, I wonder if you've slightly conditioned your body to report sick when you've clearly hit a wall and need a mandated break. I do enjoy being doted on while sick, and the license to just relax and play some video games, so I sort of get it.
Well, not at my job... But it did happen a couple months ago when I had decided to do chores together with a friend...
Have you tried Vernor's yet? /s
I usually go with Chicken Noodle Soup to cover electrolytes and fluids. I had some of the Airborne tablets when I was younger, and I thought they were pretty helpful in the moment, but that may or may not have been in my head. (It was a head cold though, so...)
Spice mentioned earlier makes my nose run, so if the sinuses are all clogged up, some really spicy stuff will clear it out. Rode on a particularly bumpy road that worked once, would not recommend it driving since it was inner ear related, but worth a try?
Thank you for the Michigander callback to Vernors - the go-to childhood remedy for upset stomachs. More sugar than I think I could tolerate without worse nausea these days.
Ear congestion is the absolute worst, and I'm hoping that isn't part of the picture this time.
+1 for spicy food for sinuses. My preference is Nongshim Ranyum: hot spicy broth but not too crazy. All the steam from the broth and the slurping action helps.
Also incidentally works for when I have an allergy type nonstop sneezing fit. Resets the system somehow. Maybe the humidity again from the steam.
Never underestimate the power of Buldak 2x Spicy Chicken, which will be on the menu to clear my head as soon as I have any appetite.
Any Buldak is too much Buldak for me, no X needed. I use about a teaspoon of the sauce package with my noodles and keep the rest in a jar. Goes pretty far for me
Same here, this is my favorite way to do it- use a small amount of the Buldak sauce and store the rest for later use. Efficient and enjoyable without absolutely destroying myself haha
Buldak 2x is my "do nothing" home remedy for a cold/flu. I've been told it's a net negative, especially if I have a scratchy throat but I've convinced myself that the induced sweating and the cleared nasal passages are worth it. The post in this thread about rasam has me curious about giving that a try.
On the non spicy side, I'm most interested in the garlic tea and the pedialyte popsicles :)
Regular chicken does the trick for sinus clearing for me but I enjoy 2x for just the heat pain every now and then to shock the system. Also Buldak is, at I find for me, better cold than hot or mildly warm. Try it sometime to see what you think.
I'll eat ramen to get carbs the day before weightlifting, and a full pack of Buldak is usually more than I want at a single meal. So I have the leftovers cold for breakfast, and they're delicious.
If you have a vietnamese place near you, pho is the perfect noodle soup when you're sick. If you need to clear your sinuses, add fresh chili and lime, and get a lemongrass tea to drink. I breathed so good after that the last time I tried it.
I tend to not do anything without understanding the scientific basis of the recommendation. So drink a lot of water and rest a lot are the most basic of remedies. Depending on the disease, there's definitely cause for ingesting easily digestible foods, honey and ginger, etc.
People eating and drinking all sorts of stuff when you have a cough: Watch out for reflux. All foods that are acidic, have caffeine or are carbonated, among others, can worsen and extend your cough by causing reflux.
I can't really say if these are truly effective or just make me feel like I am doing something to help myself, but here we go:
Hope you get well soon!
When I was sick as a kid, my parents used to swab me down with rubbing alcohol, but I think the theory was to bring down a high fever by evaporative cooling.
Unless the fever is at a dangerous level (at which point you should probably go to the ER anyway), it's better just not deal with the fever. The fever isn't caused by the virus or bacteria, it's caused by your body to cure the viral or bacterial infection. Lowering it through medicine or external treatment may provide short-term comfort, but it will ultimately hamper recovery.
Of course, fever can get to a point where it's doing more damage than good, but at that point professional medical care is really required.
I actually had asked my doctor about this because I subscribed to the same idea in the past. My doctor said that for most people, the slightly slower recovery usually isn't worth all the additional "suffering" from the fever's side effects & the collateral damage from the fever, and therefore still recommends taking OTC antipyretic drugs
I generally agree - I think the rubbing alcohol treatment is best left as family folklore, low-grade fever is best left to simmer unless it's not improving after several days (trip to the doctor), and anything over 101°F for more than a few hours (trip to the doctor).
I really should take my own advice here, since I last checked in at 102°, but that's "normal" 'flu in my experience. As long as I'm not coughing in Technicolor, it's safe to wait it out.
Yeah the alcohol trick is not recommended for kids today due to potential toxicity, not sure if it would be dangerous on an adult but there are other methods.
Ohhh yeah, now that you mention it, that's it!
I use zinc tablets (zicam) because they appear to manage minor drippage and can allegely knock a day off a week-long cold. Depending on symptoms, if my sinuses are completely closed I'll get 24-hour pseudoephedrine to take in the morning so I can breathe and acetaminophen and ibuprophen for body aches as needed and ricola + cough syrup as needed.
I used to mix yerba mate (in satchets), peppermint and chamomile with a ton of honey which creates a nice blend of minty, throat soothing, and sweet (substitute yerba mate with your tea/uncaffeinated plant of choice)
I gargle mouthwash before bed when Ive got a sore throat.
I know salt water or netti pot accomplishes the same thing but the mouthwash bottle is right next to me and ready for use
I thought salt gargles are actually scientific because they reduce swelling?
I thought it was cause salt is an antiseptic?
Elderberry flower + Linden flower tea. Definitely makes colds milder. Next to useless for COVID and flu. Fill IKEA teapot sieve with 50:50 mix, pour over and leave for 20 minutes.
You can collect them from the trees outside basically as you wish. Nobody cares. Then dry them.
I am eyeing Elderberries themselves. One needs to be careful and boil them enough so as not to poison themselves, but there is evidence they work even better.
Aside from plenty of fluids, especially hot water or soup, I like THC+CBD gummies at night, and coffee during the day. Ibuprofen is good for aches and pains, although that's not really a home remedy.
The main ingredient in cold medicine that actually does anything for you is usually diphenhydramine (Benadryl) or some other antihistamine, which is mainly to put you to sleep. The other ingredients that purport to help with cough (dextromethorphan) or nasal congestion (phenylephrine) are not really supported by scientific literature. Cannabis helps with sleep and also helps me ignore the discomfort a bit.
The coffee doesn't really help that much, although the caffeine is good for headaches. It's mostly just because if I'm sick enough to take the day off from work, I often forget to drink coffee, but I'm still addicted to caffeine. If I don't have at least a bit of caffeine by mid-afternoon, the mild withdrawal can result in feeling a little worse if I'm already sick. Breaks from caffeine can wait for another day.
I've used THC+CBD quite a bit to sleep through arthritis pain, but find that they're too dizzying and nauseating when I'm running a fever, particularly the THC. Bodies are weird.
Diphenhydramine - if I really need to sleep and can't, it's 100% effective. But the sleep quality isn't always good (as measured by a fitness tracker), and it can leave me quite groggy the next day.