Colds and Flus.

Alicia Parlette HERE.

Would a cold bring reactions like runny nose and coughing or would it be two different colds? Sometimes I have one or the other, and sometimes both, but the cough always comes after.

I think a single cold or flu could bring a whole bunch of symptoms.

Bump

A few things. (It's the end of the week, and I've got surgery on a pain-in-the-ass patient on Monday, so I'm a little off my game.)

(I mean, if I had a game, I'd be off it.)


MOLECULES
Interferon -- is not specific to any particular virus, but it may be more effective against some than others. I know that in my research on URI in shelter cats I've been encouraged to try interferon -- but I lacked the resources to do so. There's anecdotal evidence that it can have a very positive effect in treatment of populations with a disease outbreak. On an person-to-person basis, though, outcomes might be variable.

When you're talking about little molecules that more or less only recognize one agent of disease, you're talking about antibodies. Antibodies are so limited in scope that the same antibody might recognize a surface molecule on one strain of a species of bacteria but not on another. This one of the reasons disease-causing microogranisms have these letters -- H57 and the like -- after their name.

Cytokines, since they've been mentioned here, are molecules that signal different cells of the immune system and in tissues to do different things. Cells respond in very specific and very dramatic ways to particular cocktails of cytokines.

Thanks Pdawg. I didn't mean to make you work.

One quickie, don't put too much effort into this: can a person have two colds at the same time?

What this means to you -- well, quite frankly, the big things are to wash your hands and don't get stressed.

Hands are how you catch most respiratory bugs. You put your hands on something that's got virus and/or bacteria on it, then you wipe your eyes or nose and it infects your mucous membranes.

Stress makes your adrenal glands produce a type of steroid that has a lot of effects on cells throughout your body.

(For a dramatic illustration of what it can do, Google "Cushing's disease." It wouldn't be at all incorrect, however, to say that anyone who's chronically stressed has a form of this disease -- or, at least, a syndrome that resembles it in every way except its root cause.)

In the immune system, these steroids ("glucocorticoids," generally -- corticosterone in humans and rats, cortisol in cats and dogs and cows), I say, these steroids tend to turn cells off. There is even some evidence that it signals lymphocytes to kill themselves (undergo "apoptosis").

So, stress is bad.

Oy, stress I've had.

(we were early in figuring a lymphokine could be specific, frankly a surprise, a long time ago. Hard to find it online now, as I see only articles referencing the original ad infinitum. Well, that's good.) Meantime, I forget all the details. May research go on, please, preferably sans drug money, or drug money pooled and neutralized.

I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to. It may be that competition for the same cellular terrain might favor one virus over the other. The tissues in which the virus replicates are kind of like land to farmers: there is only so much of it available, and factory farms do tend to win out over small family farms.

A more common scenario in animals -- and probably in people, too, I'd wager -- is that a virus comes in and damages the tissues, and while the body is mobilizing its defenses against the virus, bacteria move in and start to replicate. The body's defense against viral infection is to kill infected cells, and all of those dying cells are excellent food for bacteria. I know that this has been well-described in cattle and in cats and I see no reason why it shouldn't also be the case for the common cold, which has a number of epidemiologic similarities to infectious upper respiratory disease in domestic animal populations that live and work in boxes the wat we do.

(Sorry -- I've been doing a lot of work on upper respiratory disease in shelter cats lately, so all of this stuff has been on my mind.)





Lately in our house and at my school we've seemed to have a two-pronged respiratory disease going. First the infected person has a head cold that takes forever (a week or more) to set in, and then seems to be going away when -- bam! -- some sort of bronchitis sets in. If we were dogs, I'd think the bronochitis was from Bordatella -- and pertussis (a disease caused by a Bordatella species) has been in the news a bit of late. Or I think that maybe it's a Strep thing...

Anyway, the bronchitis sets in and slowly migrates up through the sinuses before it goes away over the course of a week or two. I went through this a month or two ago, the missus had it in Mexico a fortnight ago. I felt terrible for her -- can't really dig the snorkeling with sinusitis.




How's the ear, by the way?

Last thing...........

The nutriceutical fad in animal medicine is to give L-Lysine for viral infections. The reasoning seems sound, but I don't know how proven it is, and it may work for some people more than others (like placeboes, which are greatly underrated drugs).

Wow, thanks some more Pdawg. That all makes loads of sense. I hadn't thought of the cell-as-acreage thing. That's cool.

There seems to be an awful lot of sick going around this winter - not flu viruses. Mostly mild colds turned nasty - mono, strep, ear infection, etc. And at least one bad stomach virus.

Sorry to hear you both got nailed with a bad cold. This thing started with a 2 week cold. The same set up - a long setting in with lots of sneezing and runny nosing. Then the sinus cold (no real chest cold for me). Then I thought I was getting better. Had a couple beers with Dasha friday night and woke up to the start of an ear infection the next morning.

The ear is persistently annoying. The seering, squeeking pain is long gone, but the pressure and dull achiness in the ear stayed all week. Lovely bright green and grayish sputum (I love that word). Hopefully the augmentin will serve me better than the amoxicillin alone did.

You know, that's happened to me a couple of times in the past year. I'm just getting over something, and then I go and get some exercise or do some heavy drinking, and then I'm sick again in two days.

Which makes me think Strep, or mononucleosis. Hmmmmmm......

I wondered about mono. I definitely don't have strep - no super-sore throat at any point. Or were you refering to your history this year?

This recent bout and a very similar situation last fall. Felt like I was coming down with something, it seemed to go away, then I went for an hour or so hour bike ride (not a big deal compared to the rides I'd been doing regularly all summer), got really hypoglycemic and barely made it home, and then got really sick for about a week.



Used to not get sick at all, until the last three years or so. (Until we moved to Wisconsin. New region, new bugs, I guess.)

Does mono resolve on its own?

Yes, but I'm pretty sure it never goes away, and can pop back up again if you're stressed.

Never!?!

K, you can get strep in your ear and not have a sore throat. My son had it when he was small. They cultured back then.

Strep is listed as one of the causes of ear infection.

I just did more research. Strep is normal flora in the human body!