Martin I don't think Brain was being or meant to come across as rude - just floating the possibility....
In that very cold winter in the late 70's, we had no central heating as we'd just moved into a renovation project and there was a copper pipe shortage and my parents couldn't get the system installed. None of us kids got a cold all winter. It was flipping cold though!
@Brian Some kind of incubation!!! How rude of you to suggest that, put your pillow in the fridge for 8 hours and that will give you some idea of what i woke upto this morning.
I've had my annual 'flu' jab, some years I have been offered a pneumonia jab too but not this year, and was telling my son (29 and with mild asthma) in Cornwall when he told me he had just had a 'flu' jab and a pneumonia jab at the same visit, different arms. I hadn't realised that pneumonia jabs were given so readily in the UK. Don't tell me they're finally getting the idea of preventative medicine.
Martin, what do you go home to? Possibly some kind of incubation...
Kathrin, you are touching it. When I was a child in Cologne, every morning bedding, especially the duvets, were hung out of windows first thing every day, the windows left open. There were far less colds, flu epidemics sure but there are far less of them in reality than the ever present common cold viruses.
So why do i get ill whilst working outside all the time??
Now I know why we hardly get ill - because (to the utter delight of my family) I always literally throw the windows open first thing in the morning. Apparently, bugs don't like fresh air
I have thought about this before jumping in. I have never had influenza in my life. A medical friend believes that I probably had the anti-bodies for the 1956/57 epidemic so whilst my entirely family was bedridden and most GPs off sick, so cover thin, I went through that and have either been lucky or well protected since. I can seriously count serious colds over my lifetime too. Sure I had the beginning of term snif thing from my daughters, but then neither of them has had serious one yet. Neither has had flu.
There is a lot of confusion about the difference. My medic friend Mark simply told me exactly what they are. He also added that many GPs (he was worked in a LOT of countries as a paediatrician) do not know the difference. A bad cold will be a flu/grippe far too fast and he laughingly said that as soon as a medic says flu the word takes a stronger hold than the virus.
However, one of the things people are not informed about is our increased susceptibility as lifestyles and conditions improved. Developing world child die of all manner of malady but seldom colds or flu. The problem is that pneumonia kills many who develop secondary infections from other things and when a 'bug' is about that brings with it the vulnerability to pneumonia medics start shouting 'grippe' or whatever and then there is panic. Exceptions like Asian flu or 'grippe A' that become virulent are not the same as common and garden colds. However, given that children get ill half a dozen and upward times a year and are susceptible when something nasty comes along is no actual surprise. We live in an age of contradictions. All of our insulation, good quality heating, use of ventilators (when draughty windows used to give us fresh air) that recycle air and other contributory factors such as air travel in 'hermetically sealed' incubators for bacteria and viruses has not done a lot for us. But then, when we live in a country where doctors still tell us that leaving windows open, going out without a hat and so on will give us a cold when science recognised the cold as a virus condition many decades ago, what chance do we have. Mind you, I shall not be ripping out the double glazing or insulation, so now that my two have had their start of year cold I guess we might all just survive. Sympathy to those of you, who like a friend and his ex-wife who used to reckon that mid-June to late August were cold free periods. When his wife and children went off with a friend, who then seemed to have all he was not missing and he was always fine, he would say: Throw open the window first thing and let the germs out, then make the tea strong and kill the rest.
Hi Shirley,
Even since the scare of "grippe A" in France, I give all the family "osilococcinum" in winter. It's a homeopathic anti-flu and (tough wood), we've been spared the flu every winter. Might be coincidence, might not.
What a good idea about the antiseptic throat lozange. I have to tell my husband, he travels a lot by air for work and just caught a cold. He also gurgles with Listerine once he feels a sore throat coming and says it helps.
We’ve got it aswell, started with a cold that only lasted a few days, then bronchitis kicked in for a week, then all good for a week, but then last sunday the chest exploded, coughing, sneezing, wheezing like 100 a day smoker, constantly out of breath, fed up now.
Glenn, good point, the 6 year old son of my boss never covers his mouth when he coughs, and one day he was chucking big green UFOs, and just spitting them on the ground, and when I told him go get a tissue, and wipe that, and to wash his hands, he replied that his parents don't do it, so why should he.
His mother uses the antibacterial gel in the back office, but she will use it before or after using the keyboard and mouse, not after picking her nose, or sneezing into her hands or all over the desk.
Not sure what that might be saying about Gourmet Wok!!!!!
A cut raw onion is supposed to absorb the bugs - seems to work, although it could be the chilly air coming in after opening the windows to get rid of the smell of onion!
I think prevention is better than cause. So wash hands often and have a good healthy diet oh and exercise could help ,too!. My 3 children were never as ill as this Doc says on average children are. But that could be down to a Vegetarian diet, all those vitamins and green vegetables!
The antibacteria gel seems to be popular here. I was going into Gourmet Wok in St Brieuc when out came four French diners who all used the gel in the car park before driving off.
I keep hearing about gastro all around, everyone seems to have it. I have only had it once, as a child, but then again, I wash my hands too often.
colds and flus, I seem to escape most times, but I eat a clove of garlic every day, and take royal jelly in the mornings in wintertime. Without that, I'd be sick, sniffles, bad circulation, stiffness, and coldsores. Have you tried royal jelly?
You might want to look into the products which we distribute from the US. We ship to France and all over the world. I haven't had a cold or flu in over 11 years... and that is coming from sunny coastal Orange County, CA to the damp gray French winters over 8 years ago. www.lifesilver.com This is not meant as spam, just a suggestion for something you may wish to investigate.
I left my children in the UK, but I do sympathise, bonne chance.
(p.s they are all in their mid to late 20's)
Oh Jane - noooooooo! I don't want to hear or read anything about runs, bad tummies, vomit or gastro..... I'm an absolute gastrophobic, it's my worst nightmare. My daughter came home last night from a cross they had to do in pooring rain, telling me she had a head ache and felt sick. I straight away get a stomach ache and feel unwell myself (and I DO feel it, it's not just imagination) and watch if she is eating and how she is behaving before going to bed. Of course she was fine.
Both our grandchildren are ill with vomiting and runs, one in Bury St Edmunds, the other in Munich!
There was an awful virus here last Winter, it lasted nearly eight weeks and we were totally flaked out. I had it again this summer, just before I went for my petscan and found the nodules in my lungs. It affected my breathing very badly and I had a bronchoioscopy and several goes in the huge lung function machine in my specialist's consulting room.
I had an armful of blood tests yesterday and my 'flu jab and the nurse that came had a cold.
One of the things we do to try and minimise picking up colds etc. is to always use a ant-bacterial gel after we have been to the supermarket in the winter.
I hope you all get well soon.
Valerie - hope you feel better soon & Twerp too xxx
You have my sympathies. I just spent 1.5 hours queuing at the doctor's then the pharmacie because Twerp's most appalling head cold I think now has basically infected his whole head - he has spots everywhere and now conjunctivitis (hence the doctor and 4 different meds from the pharmacie). We came over from Malta where it's much warmer and I'm sorry to tell you the coughs, sneezes and infections still do the rounds same as anywhere else. So hibernation is the only answer! And, as is usually the case, now that the muppet's medicated to the eyeballs and on the road to recovery, I woke up this morning feeling as though someone had skewered my throat and dizzy. Oh well, no sick leave for mums. We have patients to look after.
So happy that Jasmine's fever broke quickly. It's such a frightening experience and terrifying that you might mix 'good' symptoms with 'bad'. That's given me many a sleepless night.