It really depends how many cough drops you use in a day. Most cough drops contain 5-20 calories per piece. Say you use five drops over the course of a day, that's only 25-100 calories, not enough to worry about.
However, if you suck on one right after another, all day long, you could be taking in several hundred extra calories per day.
You may find a numbing spray, like Chloraseptic, more helpful (for fewer calories).
This may sound crazy, but my favorite throat-soother is cayenne lemonade. I make a glass of sugar free lemonade and add hot sauce (like Franks Red Hot) or dry cayenne pepper. The cayenne acts as a numbing agent, pain reliever, decongestant and expectorant (capsaicin, the "heat" in hot peppers is chemically similar to guaifenesin, the active ingredient in many cough syrups).
If I have a stuffy nose, postnasal drip, sinus congestion, or if my ears feel itchy or I have a sinus headache, I will add more cayenne (as much as I can tolerate) and will take a guaifenesin tablet as well (Mucinex is a name brand, but I buy dollar store generic).
You may want to add a bit more sweetener, especially if you use hot sauce rather than a dry hot pepper powder.
The cayenne will burn for a few minutes, especially if your throat is very raw, or if you don't eat much spicy food, but then the numbing will kick in.
You can make the lemonade with hot, warm, or cold water. I like cold. If you hate the lemonade, you can add hot sauce to a bowl or mug of hot chickem broth or bouillon).
Last edited by kaplods; 02-21-2014 at 02:01 PM.
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