Hello, and welcome to In My Bag! My name is Jenn, and this is my product review blog. 
Fall is quickly approaching, and between my five year old daughter and four year old son there will be one elementary school and two preschools worth of children whose germs that I will be exposed to secondhand. I often joke that I gave most of my immunities to my children, because it seems like since having children I have definitely been rundown and sicker more often. And since having my gastric bypass surgery last year, I have definitely weakened my poor immune system a bit further. Since last December I have had several colds, two sinus infections, walking pneumonia, and bronchitis. I shudder to think of what the coming fall and winter seasons will bring.
Anyway, while I was at BlogHer ’10, I had the opportunity to speak to a few representatives from Boiron USA, the parent company of several homeopathic remedies, including Children’s Chestal, Coldcalm, and Oscillococcinum.
Children’s Chestal: Children’s Chestal is a multi-cough formula that uses honey and other homeopathic ingredients to sooth the throat and relieve coughing due to bronchial irritation. Children’s Chestal can be used to treat all types of coughs, including wet, dry, whooping, day and night coughs. The honey is filtered and pasteurized to ensure that it is a safe flavoring and throat soother, and the medical is free of artificial colors, flavors, and PPA.
Coldcalm: Coldcalm is a multi-symptom cold reliever that tackles nasal congestion, runny noses, coughing, sneezing, and minor sore throats. It works natural and has no side effects, and comes in easy-to-take pellet form — the pellets are tasty and simply melt away when placed in the mouth.
Oscillococcinum: Oscillococcinum, or Oscillo for short, has been shown by clinical studies and a long history of use to be effective in reducing the symptoms of flu-like symptoms. It helps to combat that run-down feeling, chills, aches, and fevers, so that the body can rest and hopefully more effectively fight off whatever bacteria or virus that is making you sick in the first place.
Up until now I have only used cold medications and symptom relievers that are found in grocery stores, retail stores and pharmacies, so it’ll be interesting to see how well these three products work. None of us are sick, so obviously we can’t review anything, but as the holiday season approaches I’m sure that one or more of us will get sick, at which point I will reach for Children’s Chestal, Coldcalm, and Oscillococcinum..
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no scientific or medical proof that any of these things actually work. In fact, if you know the whole idea behind homeopathy it would seem completely ridiculous if it DID work.