Well, forget em - they're rubbish! Get yourself some Mebucaine from your apoteke and don't look back. They're by Novartis (obviously). You suck on one every 2 hours or so, and they're antiseptic, calming, analgesic and tasty. And anything legal ending in a "cain" rocks my socks
My mom swears by them...I haven't told her they can be bought here in CH or she will make me send her a kilo, like the kilo of Pulmex she has made me buy
I have a bad cough, and my hairdresser gave me one of these on Saturday, they are brilliant helped me stop coughing, and made my tongue numb strange feeling, but really helped me.
Personally I love a Strepsil! You have to have the 'Extra' ones and they are great for the kids as well. Soon as my soon starts to get a scratchy throat, bung him one of those and all is good with the world again. So they are on my shopping list when I go back to the UK next week.
Powdered aspirin, I believe. I'm usually not a fan of taking anti-pain medecine for minor stuff (especially when it's caused by me, i.e. hangover), but throat pain is so annoying and Aspegic is so effective I can't resist. Just mix the powder with some tea and minutes later it doesn't feel like there's a microscopic maniac stabbing the inside of your throat anymore. It's usually good for half a day, too.
I had a horrid throat lurgy thingie some weeks ago. After I'd recovered, I popped into the pharmacy to stock up the winter meds cabinet, particularly wanting some sort of kill or cure throat stuff.
As a child in the UK, we used to have a throat spray called, I think, Chloraseptic. I had high hopes of finding something like that - made you feel like your throat had been amputated. Of course, by now I should have learnt.
First they offered me Strepsils. No, I explained, I was actually looking for something... a bit stronger. You know, an actual medicine. In England, you can buy a... thing . Ah yes, she says pleased, we have something like that here. Marvellous, and only about 12 CHFs for a tiny bottle, a bargain. Off I go home, where I thought I'd give it a little try.
It tasted quite nice, which was the first hint of disappointment. And then a couple of minutes later, it was apparent that this stuff is about as numbing as sucking a Liquorice Allsort. Curses.
My mistake, really - I've been palmed off with soft, gentle-for-fluffy-bunnies-type Swiss meds before, so asked if it was for children too or just for adults. She assured me that it was only to be given to children under 12 with a prescription, so I had visions of it actually being effective for once. When I checked the leaflet, turns she in fact said children under 2 - 'deux ans' not 'douze ans', which to me sound virtually identical when you glide the words together.
I found Eludril (with tetracaine, bought in pharmacy here sans prescription) to be really good. It's a spray and fixes very painful viral throat for a couple of hours. Strepsils don't do anything here. And when buying them I had to go through a rather lengthy investigation why I need them and who all will pop them. Like, they are for hemoroids, or sumfin? It's not like they are evil strong meds, the pharmacy folks sometimes kill me, they don't seem to give ton of credit to customers here. Gurgling very diluted peroxide works too, but only at the beginning of throat trouble.