I'm Sick Now Learn For Clinicians Pharmacy Navigator When to Seek Care
Russell W. Raskin, MD · Physician-Designed Protocol

You're in the right place.

Tell us where you are — we'll take you exactly where you need to go.

— Choose your path —
For patients · Start here if you feel sick
I'm not feeling well right now.
Get a physician-designed plan organized around where you are in your illness — symptom guidance, the Pharmacy Navigator, a daily tracker, and the knowledge to know when to seek care.
For everyone · Understand
I want to understand what's happening.
Everything your doctor didn't have time to explain — antibiotics and when they don't help, contagion windows, recovery timelines, and the evidence behind all of it. In plain language.
For clinicians
For Clinicians.
You already know the evidence. No lecture — just the tools, for your patients and your next URI encounter.
Back
Russell W. Raskin, MD
Hi — I'm Dr. Russ Raskin.
If you're here, you're probably not feeling your best right now. I've spent nearly fifteen years in urgent care, preceded by over a decade in emergency medicine. I never planned on becoming an expert in the care of colds and the flu — but here we are. I've seen this before, more times than I ever expected. Let's figure out where you are and what to do about it.
When did this start?
How are you feeling compared to when this started?
Day 1–2 · Early Initiation
This is a great time to start.
You caught it early. Let's get you set up with the right plan and the right tools.
A Few Days In · Plateau Phase
You're in the thick of it — and that's expected.
This is the most distressing part of the curve for many patients — symptoms have stalled, mucus has thickened, and recovery seems distant. That feeling is real. Your immune system is consolidating before the recovery phase begins. The right support now may help move you from plateau to recovery.
About a Week In · Recovery Phase
You may be closer to the end than it feels.
A week in can feel like the most distressing part of the arc — because recovery is taking longer than you expected. That is not unusual for many patients. Keep an eye on your symptoms, watch for any warning signs, and make sure you're on the right path.
10+ Days · Improving
Good news — you're on the right path.
After 10 days, improvement is the right direction. Recovery from a viral URI can take time — sometimes up to three weeks or more for full resolution. Keep going. That said, take a look at our When to Seek Care guide to make sure nothing warrants attention. And once you're back to baseline — that's the time to think about staying well. The goal is to keep you off the arc next time.
10+ Days · Not Improving
At 10 days with no improvement, it's time to take a closer look.
Symptoms that have not improved after 10 days may signal a secondary complication — a bacterial infection layered on top of the viral illness. This is the clinical signal we call double worsening. Please review our When to Seek Care guide and consider seeing a clinician.
10+ Days · Getting Worse
Please review When to Seek Care now.
Worsening symptoms after 10 days is a clinical signal that warrants attention. Please review our When to Seek Care guide immediately. If you are experiencing difficulty breathing, chest pain, high fever that will not break, or any severe symptoms, seek medical attention now.
Back
Stay Well · Daily Maintenance
You're well. Let's keep it that way.
Most people do nothing for the 340 days a year they feel fine — then scramble when a cold hits. Staying well is its own discipline — daily habits built for the well, with one goal: keep you off the arc in the first place.
Back
Education Platform
Learn Here.
Everything your doctor didn't have time to tell you about your cold. What brings you here today?
Start here · Understand the illness
By symptom
The antibiotic truth
Looking ahead
Back
For Clinicians · Peer to Peer
You already know the evidence.
No lecture. Here are the tools.
Clinical content, communication frameworks, and a platform you can recommend to patients — built by a physician who has spent nearly fifteen years in the same exam rooms you have.
Communication
How to Deprogram Your Patient
Five beliefs. Five responses. Scripts that work in fifteen minutes — including the traffic light framework for wait-and-see prescriptions.
Read the article
Evidence
The Antibiotic Belief Cycle
Why patients come back certain they need an antibiotic — and how to break the cycle.
Read the HCP version
Systemic Context
A Look Behind the Curtain
The seven forces driving antibiotic overprescribing — and what the data say about breaking the cycle.
Read the HCP version
Antibiotic Stewardship
Your Favorite Pack of Antibiotics Is Essentially Dead
The indication-by-indication case against reflexive azithromycin prescribing. Resistance data, doxycycline displacement, the narrow remaining legitimate role, and the policy path forward.
Read the HCP version
URI · Bronchitis · Pneumonia
Is It a Cold, Bronchitis, or Pneumonia?
Airway anatomy map, comparison table, when antibiotics are and aren't indicated. Send patients here before the visit.
Read the article
Bronchitis · Peer to Peer
Bronchitis: Cut the Crap
Fifty years of evidence. The therapeutic cabinet is empty — by drug class. PTBD explained. The protocol that actually works.
Read the HCP version
Pharyngitis
Pharyngitis & the Prescription Reflex
Prostaglandin mechanism, dexamethasone evidence (NNT ~5), exam room script, dangerous diagnoses.
Read the HCP version
Sinusitis
Sinusitis: The Line Just Moved Again
The 2025 AAO-HNS update: watchful waiting is now Level A initial management for all uncomplicated ABRS — regardless of severity. The exam-room moves, the convergence that warrants treatment, and why the defensible position is no longer the prescription.
Read the HCP version
Post-Viral Cough
What Is With This Cough?
Duration data, trajectory groups, what doesn't work, and what to actually do — including the behavioral interventions that measurably cut inappropriate prescribing.
Read the HCP version
Otitis Media
Antibiotics Don't Treat Ear Pain
The red ear reflex, AAP diagnostic criteria, AOM vs. OME, stratified antibiotic decision framework.
Read the HCP version
Otitis Media · Under Two
Ear Infections in Young Children
Why the under-two population is legitimately different. AAP age stratification, anatomical and immunological basis, and the diagnostic discipline required when the patient won't cooperate.
Read the HCP version
Formulation · Evidence
It's in the Cup
The top prevention signal in the 2025 NMA was for the beverage, not the extract. Why EGCG is out of the capsule and in the cup — the risk-gate reasoning, peer to peer.
Read the HCP version
Communication Tools
Send Them Here
The one-sentence referral that does the deprogramming work after the visit.
From the physician
Why I Built This

"This did not come from a brilliant idea. It came from frustration — years of it, accumulated one patient at a time in an urgent care exam room."

I trained in Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. For the first half of my career I practiced emergency medicine — high stakes, high volume, the full spectrum of human crisis. Early in that career I watched young, otherwise healthy patients develop antibiotic-associated complications — colitis, allergic reactions, organisms that no longer responded to the drugs we depended on — from antibiotics they never should have been given. That stayed with me.

When I moved to urgent care, I found a different kind of battle: a system that had conditioned patients to expect an antibiotic for every cold, and conditioned many clinicians to provide one. URI patients can make up 80 to 90 percent of what we see in urgent care at certain times of year. Every day felt like the same fight.

For years, I thought about the placebo effect. Not as a trick — as a clinical reality. You cannot in good conscience prescribe a placebo. So I built something better — a structured protocol with four ingredients that have their own evidence base, designed to give patients what they actually needed from me all along.

"You don't need an antibiotic for a cold. You need a plan."

— Russell W. Raskin, MD
A cold is a viral illness, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics don't treat viruses or the symptoms they cause. If you believe you may have a bacterial infection, seek medical evaluation promptly.
From the education platform
Everything your doctor didn't have time to explain.
A physician-written library on colds, antibiotics, and what your body is actually doing. A few to start with:
Lingering symptoms
What Is With This Cough?
Your cold is gone but the cough won't quit. Here's what's actually happening — and what helps.
Antibiotics
Your Favorite Antibiotic Pack Is Essentially Dead
Why the reflexive five-day pack for a cold stopped making sense — by the numbers.
Sinus pressure
Yes, You Do Have Sinusitis
The word only sounds like a diagnosis. What it actually means — and when it becomes the rare thing that warrants an antibiotic.
Browse all articles →
For Clinicians · Peer to Peer
You already know the evidence. Here are the tools.
Clinical content, communication frameworks, and a platform you can hand a patient after the visit — built by a physician who has spent nearly fifteen years in the same exam rooms you have.