Medicine or bad lemonade? (Lemsip)

Member Name: kirsty_tinx

Product:	Lemsip
Date:	13/03/09 (271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better than not taking anything...

Disadvantages: I personally find it fairly ineffective

I have slowly begun to believe that I genuinely don't have an immune system. If there's a bug going round - I'll catch it. The flu's in town? - I can guaruntee I'll be stuck in bed with it... Someone I know has a cold - So do I! It's ridiculous. So because of this, I'm endlessly searching for things to make my illness-prone body feel slightly better whenever anything strikes.

When I got too old for the lovely, amazing calpol that I used to love, my parents obviously thought that lemsip was the easiest way to make me have medicine. I used to love the taste. I called it hot fizzing lemonade when I was younger, although looking back, I don't really understand why!

Whenever I feel ill, I always used to turn to the lemsip. It seemed like the simple solution. Have a nice hot drink which will generally make me feel better anyway, but is also loaded with paracetamol which should definitely make everything better, right?

The lemsip I've been using is Lemsip Max. It contains 1000mg of paracetamol per sachet as well as phenylephrine. I don't remember the last time I used to normal lemsip, but considering I don't find the 'max strength' one very useful, I suppose the normal one wouldn't do much for me at all!

Making lemsip is simple. All you have to do is open the sachet, pour it into a mug and add hot water. The smell is pretty powerful when you open it, although if you have a cold, I suppose you won't be able to smell it very well anyway! You can have one every 4-6 hours, but no more than 4 in 24 hours, because of the amount of paracetamol in it. I think they cost around £3 but I haven't had lemsip in a little while, so the price may be slightly different now.

I have only ever tried the lemon flavour of lemsip, and feel it is probably time to attempt the blackcurrent ones, as one of the things that puts me off lemsip at the moment is the taste. I can't stand it.
It does taste like lemon, but it's quite bitter, and although I add honey to it, I still don't like the taste, and the way it hurts my throat as it goes down. It's better by adding sugar or honey, but I wouldn't say it tasted nice at all.

I find that when I drink this, I start off finding it drinkable, but the more I drink the faster I want to get rid of it. There are times when I can't make myself finish it, because I dislike the taste so much, but the problem with that is I don't know how much paracetamol I may have consumed, so I can't take anything else.

Whenever I used to have lemsip, I always presumed it helped, but looking back I don't really think it did. I can't stand the taste, and I usually feel that I can't finish the drink. Even if I can't taste it properly, I can still usually taste/feel the bitterness, and I don't like that. I've moved on to having Cold and Flu tablets from any supermarket or Boots or somewhere, because I find that they do the same job as Lemsip without the horrible taste. Despite not feeling Lemsip is that effective, and I'm sure these Cold and Flu tablets are very similar, at least it feels like I'm doing something to combat colds and flu until I find something better that really works!

So all in all, I dislike Lemsip. I know some people find it very effective, so maybe I'm just hard to please! I don't find it that effective as my blocked or runny nose tends to go away just as easily when I don't take any at all! It doesn't help my sore throats or headaches very much, and I think it generally it isn't that effective. However, some people like it, so maybe it's worth a try anyway!

Summary: Worth trying, as I know some people think it is good.