Ok, you described it differently this time. In your first post you said that you used it daily. Even though Zicam hasn't been proven to prevent colds, using it daily shouldn't harm your immune system. The question is whether a harmful amount of zinc would be absorbed into the blood stream through the nasal epithelium if you use it every day. Dr. Epstein calculated the amount of zinc in a metered dose of Zicam in 1999. He said that one metered dose of Zicam contains 0.268 mg of zinc. There are 120 metered doses in a bottle of Zicam, which equals 32.16 mg of zinc. The RDA for Zinc is 15 mg, so about half a bottle of Zicam would have to be absorbed each day before you would even reach the RDA. A squirt in both nostrils contains 0.536 mg of zinc, which is only about 10% of the RDA, and that assumes 100% absorption. Obviously that doesn't include the amount of zinc that you ingest in food, vitamins, etc, but it is highly unlikely that using Zicam once a day would harm your immune system. Even if Zicam did prevent colds, it seems to me that you would have to apply it every few hours, which isn't practical. Using it once a day would only work if you happen to come in contact with the cold virus when the zinc is still active, and that assumes that it even works as a preventative.
Zicam has not helped all of my colds, but it has helped most of them. I haven't lost confidence in it just because it hasn't worked every time. One thing that I have found is when you have a really nasty cold, just keep using it because once the cold breaks, the symptoms go away quickly. Sometimes it takes a day longer to do its thing. I hope that you feel better soon!
Dan |
