What to Take to Soothe a Sore Throat: Remedies That Work

Most sore throats respond well to a handful of remedies you can pick up at any pharmacy or find in your kitchen. Ibuprofen, honey, and medicated lozenges all have solid clinical evidence behind them, though each works through a different mechanism and relieves different aspects of throat pain. The trickier part is knowing which remedy fits your particular situation, because not every sore throat is the same and not every popular fix holds up under scrutiny.

Ibuprofen and Acetaminophen

If you want simple, fast relief, an over-the-counter pain reliever is the most straightforward option. A clinical trial comparing ibuprofen at 400 mg with acetaminophen at 1,000 mg found that both were significantly better than placebo, but ibuprofen outperformed acetaminophen on every pain-rating scale at all time points beyond two hours.¹ That makes sense given that ibuprofen is both a painkiller and an anti-inflammatory, and inflammation is a major driver of sore throat discomfort. Acetaminophen still works if ibuprofen is off the table for you, say because of stomach issues or a medication interaction, but expect it to take the edge off rather than eliminate the pain entirely.

Some people alternate ibuprofen and acetaminophen throughout the day. This is generally considered safe for adults as long as you respect the dosing intervals for each drug and don’t exceed the daily maximum for either. The combination can provide more continuous relief because the two drugs peak and taper at different times.

Medicated Lozenges That Actually Do Something

Not all throat lozenges are created equal. Grocery-store cough drops with menthol or eucalyptus oil provide a cooling sensation and might distract you from the pain briefly, but they don’t address inflammation or meaningfully numb the tissue. The lozenges with real clinical support fall into two categories: those containing a local anesthetic and those containing a topical anti-inflammatory.

Benzocaine Lozenges

Benzocaine is a numbing agent. In a placebo-controlled trial, patients using benzocaine lozenges reached worthwhile pain relief in about 20 minutes, while placebo users waited more than 45 minutes, and significantly more benzocaine users reported meaningful pain reduction overall.² The effect is local and temporary. You’re essentially deadening the nerve endings in your throat lining for a while. That’s useful when you need to eat, drink, or sleep, but the pain returns as the anesthetic wears off.

Lidocaine works on the same principle. A study on lidocaine spray found it reduced both the severity and incidence of sore throat compared to no treatment.³ That study dealt with post-surgical sore throats rather than colds, but the numbing mechanism is the same regardless of the cause.

Flurbiprofen Lozenges

Flurbiprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug delivered directly to the throat in lozenge form, and the evidence for it is notably strong. In one trial of patients with swollen, inflamed sore throats, flurbiprofen lozenges outperformed placebo across the board over 24 hours, with nearly 80% greater relief for throat pain and close to 100% greater improvement in difficulty swallowing.⁴ A separate randomized trial reported that patients using flurbiprofen lozenges experienced about 47% greater pain reduction and 66% greater improvement in swallowing difficulty compared to placebo over the first 24 hours.⁵

Flurbiprofen also comes as a throat spray, and a trial comparing the spray to the lozenge found them essentially equivalent in pain reduction at both one and two hours.⁶ The spray may be easier to use when swallowing a lozenge feels too painful. Either way, the advantage of a topical anti-inflammatory over a systemic one like oral ibuprofen is that the drug concentrates right where the inflammation is, which means a lower total dose and fewer concerns about stomach irritation.

Honey

Honey is one of the few traditional remedies with a meaningful body of evidence behind it. A systematic review and meta-analysis pooling data from multiple trials found that honey improved combined upper respiratory symptom scores, reduced cough frequency, and reduced cough severity compared to usual care.⁷ It’s worth noting that the strongest evidence is for cough, not sore throat pain specifically, but since coughing aggravates throat irritation, taming the cough indirectly helps the throat too.

Honey’s thickness coats and soothes irritated tissue, and it has mild antimicrobial properties. A spoonful straight, dissolved in warm water, or stirred into tea all work. One firm rule: never give honey to children under one year of age due to the risk of infant botulism. For older children and adults, it’s a low-risk option that can complement other treatments.

Zinc Lozenges

Zinc lozenges occupy an interesting middle ground. They don’t target throat pain directly the way an anesthetic or anti-inflammatory does, but they can shorten the overall duration of a cold, which means fewer days of suffering. A meta-analysis of seven trials found that zinc lozenges shortened common cold duration by about a third overall.⁸ A separate meta-analysis breaking down symptom-by-symptom effects found that high-dose zinc acetate lozenges shortened sore throat duration by about 18%, though the confidence interval crossed zero for that specific symptom, meaning the sore throat effect alone didn’t reach statistical significance.⁹

An earlier randomized trial was more encouraging for throat pain specifically, finding that the zinc group had a median of just one day of sore throat compared to three days in the placebo group.¹⁰ The catch is that zinc lozenges taste metallic and can cause nausea, and you need to start them within the first day or two of symptoms to see much benefit. Think of zinc as a strategy for shortening the cold rather than an immediate throat soother.

Cold Drinks, Ice, and Staying Hydrated

There’s a reason popsicles are the go-to after a tonsillectomy. Cold numbs inflamed tissue and reduces swelling. A clinical study found that cold vapor, ice cube absorption, and the combination of the two all reduced sore throat pain effectively.¹¹ Ice chips, cold water, frozen fruit bars, or chilled broth can all provide temporary relief without any medication at all.

Staying hydrated in general matters more than people tend to realize. A dry throat is a more painful throat. Fluids keep the mucous membranes moist and help thin mucus. Warm liquids like tea or broth are soothing for many people, likely because the warmth increases blood flow to the area and the steam helps with congestion. Whether you prefer warm or cold is largely a matter of what feels better to you in the moment; both have plausible mechanisms of relief.

Salt Water Gargles

Gargling with warm salt water is probably the most universally recommended home remedy for sore throats, but the evidence behind it is surprisingly thin. The theoretical benefit is that a hypertonic salt solution draws moisture out of swollen tissue, temporarily reducing inflammation. Many people report that it helps, and it’s essentially free and harmless. However, a laboratory study testing salt water against viral particles found that it did not produce any significant reduction in viral load.¹² That doesn’t mean salt water can’t reduce pain through osmotic effects on swollen tissue, but it does mean you shouldn’t expect it to fight the underlying infection.

If salt water gargling makes your throat feel better, keep doing it. A half teaspoon of table salt in a cup of warm water, gargled for 15 to 30 seconds, is the standard approach. Just don’t rely on it as your only strategy when real pain relief is available.

Herbal Demulcents

Demulcents are substances that form a soothing film over mucous membranes, and several herbal ingredients work this way. Marshmallow root, slippery elm, and licorice root are the most commonly used. Marshmallow root and slippery elm both contain mucilage, a gel-like substance that coats the throat and reduces the raw, scratchy feeling.¹³ Licorice root similarly creates a protective layer along the mucous membranes while also having mild anti-inflammatory properties.

These are available as teas, throat coat blends, and lozenges. The evidence for demulcents is largely traditional and mechanistic rather than drawn from large randomized trials, so they sit in a lower tier of confidence than ibuprofen or flurbiprofen. That said, the mechanism is straightforward: coat the tissue, reduce irritation. They’re reasonable options to layer on top of other treatments, and they’re well tolerated.

When Doctors Prescribe Something Stronger

For a typical cold-related sore throat, over-the-counter remedies are usually sufficient. But severe sore throats sometimes warrant prescription-level intervention, and two categories come up most often: corticosteroids and antibiotics.

Corticosteroids

A single dose of dexamethasone, usually given as an injection or oral tablet, can substantially speed up pain relief in severe cases. One trial of patients with severe acute pharyngitis found that dexamethasone-treated patients experienced pain relief starting at about 6 hours, compared to over 12 hours for the placebo group, and complete resolution of pain in about 15 hours versus 35 hours.¹⁴ A trial in children with suspected mononucleosis found that dexamethasone provided significantly better pain relief at 12 hours, though the benefit faded at later time points.¹⁵

A systematic review of randomized trials found that corticosteroids were more effective than placebo at resolving pain at 24 hours, but the results across studies were quite inconsistent, making it hard to draw a firm universal conclusion.¹⁶ In practice, emergency departments and urgent care clinics sometimes use a single dose of dexamethasone alongside other treatments for patients who are in significant pain or having trouble swallowing. This isn’t something you’d take on your own; it requires a clinician’s judgment about whether the severity justifies it.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics get prescribed for sore throats far more often than the evidence supports. A Cochrane systematic review found that antibiotics shorten sore throat symptoms by about 16 hours on average and provide modest protection against rare complications, but the absolute benefit is small.¹⁷ Since the vast majority of sore throats are viral, antibiotics do nothing for them, and overprescription contributes to antibiotic resistance. The main scenario where antibiotics genuinely matter is a confirmed strep throat infection, where treatment prevents rheumatic fever and other complications. If you don’t have a positive strep test, asking for antibiotics is unlikely to help and could cause side effects for no benefit.

Not Every Sore Throat Comes From a Cold

It’s easy to assume every sore throat means you’re getting sick, but a range of non-infectious factors can irritate the throat just as badly. Smoking, dry indoor air, mouth breathing during sleep, snoring, shouting or prolonged singing, certain medications, and exposure to environmental pollutants can all cause pharyngeal irritation.¹⁸ Acid reflux is another common culprit; stomach acid creeping into the throat at night can produce a chronic low-grade sore throat that no cold remedy will fix.

When a sore throat keeps coming back or lingers for more than a week without other cold symptoms, it’s worth considering whether the cause is something environmental rather than infectious. Running a humidifier in dry climates, addressing reflux, or simply staying hydrated through the night can resolve chronic cases that a bag of lozenges never will.

The Capsaicin Curiosity

This one sounds counterintuitive, but capsaicin, the compound that makes chili peppers burn, has been explored as a pain-relief mechanism for the mouth and throat. The receptor it activates, TRPV1, responds to heat, acidity, and pungent compounds with an initial burning sensation followed by a lasting desensitization period where the nerve essentially stops firing pain signals.¹⁹ This desensitization principle is already used in topical capsaicin patches for nerve pain elsewhere in the body. For sore throats, there’s no widely available capsaicin lozenge yet, but the biology is real enough that some people swear by spicy foods when their throat hurts. Whether the brief flare of heat is worth the subsequent numbing effect is a personal call.

Probiotics for Recurring Sore Throats

An emerging area of research involves using probiotic bacteria, specifically a strain called Streptococcus salivarius K12, to prevent recurring sore throats in children. One trial reported that children given this probiotic daily for six months had a significantly lower incidence of sore throat compared to untreated children, but a larger placebo-controlled trial in school-aged children found no significant difference.²⁰ The one placebo-controlled trial in adults showed no benefit when the probiotic was used alongside antibiotics for an acute episode. The evidence here is genuinely mixed, and the idea that you can colonize your throat with “good” bacteria to crowd out pathogens is appealing but unproven for most people. Probiotics are safe, but if you’re buying S. salivarius K12 lozenges specifically to prevent sore throats, know that the strongest evidence comes from small, unblinded studies, and the larger, better-designed trial was negative.