A Spoonful of Sugar

Anti-Cough.
Originally uploaded by William Wilkinson

For the past few years, I've had a reoccurring problem during the winter where I get a sinus infection. This year I managed to avoid it and I thought I was going to make it to spring without getting sick. But today proved otherwise. I woke up with an earache that eventually progressed to a fever and sore throat. Thankfully, my co-workers had some Tylenol and cough drops, so I was able to make it through the day.

Tonight I stopped to get my own supply of over-the-counter remedies and I came to a startling realization -- there is sugar in medicine. I was comparing the active ingredients in different medicines when I noticed they all had sugar in them. I ended up picking up a caplet cough suppressant instead of a liquid and cough drops made with aspartame instead of sugar.

I suppose that these medicines would taste horrible without sugar in them, but still -- who enjoys taking medicine? I take it because I want to feel better and not because it is tasty. To make matters worse, drug labeling is vastly different than food labeling, so I really had to look to figure out which products were sugar-free.