New Winter Sickness

There's a new winter sickness - what's that you say? Well I'm sick of it already that's what!!


One of us or all 3 have been ill for at least 4 weeks now with a cold/virus that won't shift. Yesterday I saw a Dr as Jasmine, my 3.5 year old had a high temperature 40.5 and headache. The Doc said that kids are on average ill 7-8 times a year, mostly condensed into the winter months. So let's say 6 times in 3 months, so every 2-3 weeks per child they will be ill. With 3 children that means one will be ill every week in Winter. What is worse? - all 3 at the same time or one each week? No-one told me that before I had 3!


I'm thinking we need to emigrate to Australia in Winter. How do the rest of you cope?!?



No wonder people relish the thought of Spring...

Quite right to have the tests Ian. I go to a homoeopath who is also a qualified medic. He gave us the test kit which then had to be sent of to Paris, four tubes of bloods. On the whole my Vs are OK and being a light skinned person who spends maximal time in the sun at any time of year, my needs for that are less than most peoples and having worked in the tropics for years my production rates remains high despite age.

It included checks for internal cancers, diabetes and blood borne clues to possible heart conditions. Go for it. general health checks at any age are useful. They show vulnerabilities such as people who 'always' have colds and what could be done to avoid them. A German homoeopathic practitioner friend always used to have his children checked annually, they could change diet or give supplements and changed the vulnerability to viruses. They were still transmitted but the effects were less devastating. These were not health freaks either, just basically health aware and willing to work with and sometimes against nature.

In fact the number of IU needed varies by person. The idea is to get to a target level of 30 to 50 nanogrammes per mililitre of activated vitamin D in your blood, and the number of IU that you need to take to get to this seems to vary quite widely. I intend to have blood tests done at some point to see what my levels are.

IU 400, 5000 is basically urinated away. Plus Kathrin I get surplus Ds from sun, champignons and oily fish but the supplement is good for bones and I have a fracture healing...

First, it depends on two things - how far from the equator you are, and the time of day. In any case, outside the hours of about 10am to 3pm the angle of the sun rays is such that the UVB that is required is filtered by the atmosphere. But the further north or south you are, the less UVB will get through to you except in high summer. Next, there's sub block. Anything above SPF 15 and you'll essentially make no vitamin D. Then there's the fact that manufacture of vitamin D declines with age, so the older you get the less you'd make naturally. Yet another factor is skin colour. The more tanned we are, or the darker our skin, the less UVB will get the the appropriate cholesterol mollecules to begin the vitamin D process.

In winter therefore we tend to make very little vitamin D, and prehaps the only sources in our diets are oily fish like salmon and mackerel, and chicken. Chicken?? Yes, because farmed chickens are given vitamin D to strengthen THEIR bones and to help them make less fragile eggs.

So yes, 20 minutes for a lightly tanned person in a country not too far from the equator at the right tome of the year and the right time of day.

The delicious irony of the desire to cover up and protect ourselves from the sun as much as we now do is that the rate of skin cancer has actually increased overall. Why? Because apparently this leaves us way deficient in vitamin D, which has some link to incidence of cancer. Also, the most serious skin cancers, the malignant melanomas, also tend to occur on skin that isn't exposed to the sun.

Why not just go outside and get some "natural" vitamin D? I read, just 20 minutes outside gives you the necessary amount!

Because I'm not usually there for anything. :-)

How many IU are in your tablets? That's the other reason to do it yourself, because for example in the UK the RDA is 400IU, but medics who specialise are saying 5000IU per day is a good number.

I have Orocal, calcium cholecalciferol with vitamin D3. Just ask your medic when you're there for something else anyway and it'll go on the prescription. Six months worth a time usually. Why pay?

I would second what Don says about vitamin D3. I've been reading a lot about it, and it seems like there are doctors who have spent years trying to get the message out and not really managing.

If you're interested go and read/watch the material on this page. The author is a computer geek who happens to have got interested in vitamin D.

I bought some D3 from the US, and it works out at about 10 euros per year for 5000IU per day. Have just started taking it, so we'll see what the results are.

and today - Jasmine is sick again. I'm beginning to wonder if she has an amazing ability to be ill on Nursery days!

Jasmine is much better now and thankfully the other 2 didn't catch it (so far!). We have our windows open a lot (in fact we still sleep with ours open and the girls window is open until our room drops below 18 then we close it) so hopefully the bugs are flushed out regularly. I've been giving them multi-vitamins and Vit D. My hubby takes Echinacea to try to keep him ok but I'm not sure if I can take this again as I'm still feeding Maisy.

Our colds seem to be hanging around forever but we do seem to be on the other side now and I'm hoping in a week or so we'll all be fit as fiddles again. We can't visit my hubby's parents at the moment with us having colds and Jasmine being ill as hubby's Dad is waiting for a back operation (to get rid of spine cancer) so it's frustrating each time we're sick as we have to keep the children away in case we risk him being ill and his op being cancelled. I'm all up for the power of positive thinking and kicking this cold's a** before next weekend!

I now understand why I had one anti pneumonia jab and none since - it is a once in a lifetime - or many years - jab. My son was told this by the nurse who did his jab.

Pneumonia jabs have been given to asthmaticsm for quite a long time.

Another crucial nutrient for the prevention of infection is vitamin D3. Our bodies will make sufficient amounts of D3 naturally if one is exposed to direct full sunlight over as much of their body as is legal for about 20 minutes per day. The reason winter time is traditionally linked to infection is the fact that we get little sun exposure during those months. Daily supplementation with 2000 to 5000 iu of D3 during those periods when solar exposure is not possible will do wonders for ones overall health.

Also, it is not only mercury that is problematic in vaccines. There are myriad other adjuvants in these witch's brews which are responsible for auto immune disorders and neurological damage which is irreversible and will last for a lifetime. I am the victim of this which resulted after a mandatory tetanus vaccination that was imposed on me in 1990. The bizarre symptoms began about 2 months after the vaccination. Dr. Russell Blaylock has been warning of these vaccine problems for a very long time. His research is highly respected, but he is under a media blackout. You might want to read what he has written: http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/dr-russell-blaylock...

Sorry to hear that you are suffering with illness already this winter! Hope that you can break the cycle and improve things for everyone! I am not sure exactly HOW to break that cycle - but I do think that antiseptic throat pastilles, good diet, plenty of fresh air (in the house as well as spending time outside) can help!! Sure my children weren't ill as often as yr Doc suggests - but maybe it is simply that I don't remember it now!!

Oh wow! What happened to SARS, did Murdoch take it over and incorporate it into News International and close it down or something like that? It certainly did take headlines and disappear quickly though...

I have friends who live in Australia, and there kids are always ill............... so dont think that will help!!

For those of you with faith in vaccine technology, you might want to google "flu vaccine dangers". Is injecting yourself with mercury (thimerosal) a really good idea? How about inserting viral bits of DNA directly into your body, bypassing the body's natural defense systems set up to deal with the entry of such things? These whipped together "seasonal" vaccines have never been properly tested. The reason given is that the pathogens are mutating too fast for all that expensive human trial stuff. Common sense, heavy metal detox, proper diet and supplementation with immune supporting nutrients seems far more practical than becoming a guinea pig for pharmaceutical interests. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203897404578078470951476946.html

I rest my case.

I would be hesitant about flu jabs, in particular for the younger folk.

This is the very reason our immune systems are shot to bits. That, and the fact that a number of people have had nasty reactions to the jab, and some report that they have developed full blown flu from the jab.

Also, let's face it, anyone living in a house is living in "incubation".

Snap Martin, just a guess. No rudeness intended. I did a dash for the highly insulated, double glazed kitchen and built up the stove after being too cold under a winter duvet to get something else to put on and too cold to stay in bed in the end.

Maybe the best point you do make though, is an awful lot of what is said and supposedly known is good old quackery and in your way you prove that point as I do somewhere else in the greater but basically unknown scheme of things. It all gets a bit like the apocryphal tales of the old fellow who says "You young people with old your colds and flu", standing there on bowed legs from Rickets, wheezing from 60 Woodbines a day and coal dust, fingers almost immobilised from grasping a pick or shovel and back bent...