Cough syrups, cough drops, 'cold cure teas' are all too sweet, or too
burning....

I get dry sore throat that often develops into painful infection. The nurse
practitioner said to keep the saliva flowing, told me if I ran out of cough
drops or hard candies, to suck on a button or something.

Teas like Sleepytime (chamomile and mint etc) help, and hot chocolate
(unsweetened); so do hot oily soups like chicken broth. What helps more is
solids in hot oily liquid, like canned corn with butter; the solids sort of
clean off the throat, spend longer there, so there's more contact with the
throat before the stomach fills up.

Citrus, orange juice, tomato juice, etc irritate my throat, make me feel
sneezy; even the 'chewable' acerola-type vitamin C lozenges.

One odd thing that helps me a little is chewing fragments of stevia leaf.
That makes saliva flow but it isn't a cloying sweet in the stomach.

Other ideas, please???

Skinny