Is there any particular expression for this?

Question

Okay, the following is what I want to say. But it is too long. So I want to find a better way to express it (the bold), using some idioms or short phrases.

Your friend caught a cold. So he took medicine. A week later he got better. He says he got recovered because he took medicine. However, I want to tell him that the cold went away not because he took medicine, but because it has run its course.

I asked people around and someone said that I can express it like "You got better because it is time you recovered" (It is + past tense). Is this the right expression? Or is there another way to express it?

Answer 1

Your phrasing in bold is pretty much the standard way of expressing this idea in English. Anything shorter would be unclear.

You could simply say, "Well, the disease had just run its course", which implies that the medicine was unnecessary. But if you're trying to emphasize that the medicine was unnecessary, you need to spell it out.

Answer 2

If you're looking for a more colloquial way of saying

the cold went away not because you took medicine, but because it has run its course.

it could be something like this:

You got better because the cold had run its course. It had nothing to do with the medicine.