In late autumn, the large temperature difference between day and night makes one susceptible to colds if not careful. At this time, we usually drink a bowl of hot ginger soup, but experts in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) remind us that the timing of drinking ginger soup is crucial and it should not be consumed for more than two days.
After being affected by wind-cold pathogens, symptoms such as aversion to cold and fever, headache, body aches, sneezing, and a clear nasal discharge may appear. If you drink a bowl of hot ginger soup at this point and induce a slight sweat, you will feel your nasal passages clear and your headache disappear. This is because ginger is pungent in taste and warm in nature, possessing the effect of expelling wind and cold.
It's not wrong to drink ginger soup after being affected by wind-cold, but why do some people, who clearly have a wind-cold cold, find their symptoms worsen after drinking ginger soup? This is because an illness is a constantly changing process. In the case of a wind-cold cold, it often transforms into a wind-heat cold after a period of time. In TCM, this process is called "transforming into heat," and is characterized by worsened fever, red eyes, a sore throat, dry mouth with bad breath, purulent nasal discharge, and yellow phlegm. If you use the warm ginger at this stage, it will naturally aggravate the condition.
Therefore, when using ginger soup to treat a wind-cold cold, it must be taken within a "time window." This "time window" is the period from being affected by wind-cold until it transforms into heat. Its length mainly depends on the patient's constitution and environment. For some people, this "time window" may be one or two days, or even longer; for others, it might only last half a day, or even one or two hours. Once the "time window" passes, the nature of the illness changes, and the medicine used must be completely different. Therefore, you can drink ginger soup after catching a cold, but it must be done as early as possible.
From the above, it can be seen that we actually have more opportunities to use cold-natured medicines after catching a cold. Commonly used over-the-counter Chinese patent medicines for colds, such as Sanjiu Ganmaoling, Xiaochai Huaji, Qingkailing, and Banlangen Chongji, are all cold-natured medicines. If signs of "heat" appear after a cold, these medicines should be used instead of ginger.