Flu Immune 500

How to prevent colds from ever occurring is never done but how to lessen the colds one gets each year is within reach of most of us. Accomplishing this is keeping yourself and your immune system in good shape and washing your hand often and washing them well. This advice is for both colds and influenza.

Both are upper respiratory infections cause by a virus from being in close contact with someone who harbors the virus. All they have to do is to sneeze and the viruses leave their nasal passage and land in the air that you breathe. In other words they were rejected by the other fellow’s nose by the sneeze.

(A sneeze is the body’s first defense against invading organisms. Here’s how it works: a virus or some other foreign agent attempts to get a passageway into a body. The little hairs that line the inside of an nose, the antennae, sends a message to the immune system asking for permission to let them in or throw them out. Their password doesn’t match those on file and they get thrown out.)

Well, something like that happens. Anyway they try again. Some escape past the gate keepers and hatch into a full blown cold or flue about 24 hours later in your nose and in your throat. You in turn sneeze out your germs and the hobo germ crew tries again. This time it could be your children, your mother, the clerk at the grocery store who checked you out yesterday at the store, who gets to be a germ hatchery for a week or so.

One powerful sneeze can spew these viruses nine or ten feet. They land on table tops, others’ clothes, everywhere. It is a good advice to wipe surfaces down often with an antiseptic solution when someone in a family has a cold. This may be a preventative for the other members. Too, carry hand wipes when away from home to keep hands reasonably clean.

Hands should never be around your face unless they are freshly washed. I have no clue as to how you can tell this to a teething baby who slobbers all over himself and mom and all the toys. I suppose instead you frequently wipe his nose and wash his hands and try to keep his toys as clean as possible.

Children this young may still have some of their natural immunity, especially if they are breast fed, and will sail through a family illness without even getting a cold. I have seen it happen. Although the reverse can also happen.

The nesting site for these viruses is the soft mucus lining of the upper respiratory system. These become red and swollen. In a person with a healthy immune system a cold will leave the body with protective antibodies (weapons against the same type of cold) against suffering another such fate possibly for the rest of the cold season.

If this is so, why then do some people have three or four colds in the cold and flu season which typically are in the fall, winter, and early spring months? This happens because there are so many different strains of viruses. They seem to be constantly changing or maybe medical science is keener and is now able to detect them; or both could be the reason.

Cold in themselves may not do too much damage, but complications from colds can be serious. The damaged mucus membranes and the weakened immune system may permit more serious ailments such as pneumonia, ear infections, and sinusitis. These may need antibiotics and even may lead to hospitalization.

Actually, a cold aggravates whatever other chronic condition the body has. Asthmatics are especially hit hard when a cold or flu downs them. The usual bodily mechanisms for dealing with these other bodily ailments have had to work overtime when a cold or flu strikes. It is similar to a mother being down with the flu having to care for another family member recuperating from some other illness.