Submitted 10 hours ago by TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
No cure so you gotta rest. Nose is stuffed so you gotta mouth breathe. Throat is dry from mouth breathing. Dry throat makes it painful to swallow. Pain keeps you from sleeping and recovering. Lack of sleep leads to worse symptoms like piercing headaches. Need to rest to get rid of the headaches. Headache and swallowing is too painful to rest properly. Lack of rest perpetuates headaches, nose congestion, dry throat, painful swallowing.
What is this BS
You’ve survived everyone you’ve caught so far, haven’t you? That’s a testament to it’s awesomeness.
All that IS the response, and without it, a virus would kill you.
You are better off toughing it out than taking drugs that block the responses.
thank you for your advice, doctor…?
Dr Trustmebro. It’s Romanian.
bad at it? you literally rest for a week then recover, as opposed to dying. your pretty fucking good at it. you just don’t know how bad it could be
The real question should be:
Why is our society built around disposable labor and assuming we will be at 100% functionality all the time?
Capitalism
It isn’t? That’s why you get paid sick leave.
Look at this guy with his sick leave and ability to stay home and rest when he’s sick!
What about him?
Yeah I think the real thing is just not understanding how bad a cold without an immune system would be. IE only real way to put it in context is, read up on what an immune-comprimised individual goes through when they get a cold.
It’s a bit like saying
“why is my countries missile defense so crappy, whenever we’re attacked there’s chunks of metal all over the ground, so much smoke and noise it makes it hard to sleep, why are we so bad at defending from missiles”.
When I have a cold I wear a cloth mask to bed and that actually helps reduce the sore throat I get from breathing dry air. Also, it does a pretty good job of preventing my partner from getting sick as well!
Dude, you are in a million years battle with other organisms trying to exploit and kill you, and you’re fucking winning. I would call that a blazing success. The other organisms are trying their literal best, their survival depends on it, and you just KEEP. ON. WINNING.
Some might even call this million years battle a cold war
deep sigh
Okay, here’s your upvote. Now leave.
Russia and US typing in the chat…
These organisms are doing their best, okay? They’re just too smol.
The immune system is fucking incredible, you should read up on it and then you'll never make a post like this again!
I was about to say this too. It does a pretty fucking incredible job at fighting colds.
A lot of people in this thread saying that viruses are losing when we live through a cold. That's just not true. Their goal is to live/reproduce, not to kill. They're winning at a different game, it just hurts us as a byproduct.
The common cold is a family of coronaviruses, our bodies have been fighting off their mutations for millennia. An mRNA vaccines for colds, if I remember correctly, was in the works, but, well, we’ve all seen what’s happening there
Its more often rhinoviruses rather than coronaviruses or other families
I disagree, there’s a no way a rhino could fit in there
So does that mean a long time ago people were dying of the cold in droves?
See the natives of America after Europeans showed up.
Certainly possible, if not likely, that when these viruses first evolved to infect humans or human ancestors they caused increased mortality
No. But covid-19 belongs to the same group of viruses that also includes the common cold.
I think that the real wonderment is that, even though we know the way virusses are distributed. And that social distancing is adamant in preventing that distribution, we simple tend to ignore this and spreading that shit like crazy.
That weird behaviour costs our economy millions.
That “weird behavior” of close, social cooperation is why we’re the apex predators of this planet, for better or worse.
You know symptoms is the tangible evidence of your body fighting the fucker? I’m no scientist but I remember hearing that apparently a raised body temp is one method of killing the cunt that’s trying to attack you.
Sure it sucks. But you basically just have to rest for a day or two and your body just cures himself … I’d say that’s a pretty good response.
And thanks to our brains we also have medicine to combat most of these symptoms, making it really just a minor inconvenience.
With these symptoms you can’t run, you can’t hunt, you can’t burn too many calories. Your body does everything in its power to prevent you from using resources your body needs to defeat the sickness.
That’s the reason why placebo meds work: the fact that the doctor gave you medicine means that you are really sick, and therefore you have to rest. In reality you’re behaving differently and therefore you’ll get healthy faster.
Oh: and you’re slightly dehydrated so you don’t have that much risk of infecting others.
We are tribal animals. Apes together strong. We care for the sick ones because that means they can focus on recovery.
Is that why placebos work? I could swear they had done studies that show that placebos can be as effective as medication under certain conditions, all other things being equal. Maybe not as effective as medication, but more effective than non-treatment.
I found a study some time ago about pets and placebos, where the subscription of meds for the pet resulted in different behavior by the pet owner, I couldn’t find it but here’s an article about it: veterinaryprescriber.org/…/the-caregiver-placebo-…
Only if the medication doesn’t work. The evidence is that placebos don’t work. Mostly, the placebo effect is a statistical illusion.
It is plausible that the body will expend more energy to combat a disease if you are (sub-)consciously convinced that you are cared for and don’t need to stress. Stress hormones down-regulate the immune response. Cortisol, used for treatment of autoimmune disorders like asthma and allergies, is a stress hormone.
But a sham treatment could also have the opposite effect. If your subconscious understands that as a signal that you must get back into action, you may end up releasing stress hormones. These psychological effects are just too idiosyncratic and fickle to be used reliably.
Stuff like broken bones or cancer doesn’t respond to psychology at all. The body is already doing all it can.
Your immune system and the virus are at war, the symptoms are collateral damage.
It’s more like colds are incredibly good at responding to the human body. Following the evolution of corona was quite amazing, no?
Some of those symptoms are caused by the virus as part of its strategy for spreading. They make you likely to spread infectious fluid from your nose and mouth. Meanwhile your body has to learn how to recognize a virus that has evolved to be hard to recognize (and do that without also accidentally “recognizing” some of your own cells and killing you) and then track down every last virus. And there are billions of viruses, many of which are hiding inside your own cells.
It is there to give men an idea of what childbirth is like. (Tongue very much in cheek)
it's funny because I'm AFAB but NB with a husband and I'm the one who gets the man-flu.
Pump ur body with vitamins and lean protein it gives ur body all the components it needs to fight as effectively as possible. U will be on the mend in less than a day. Or maybe I’m just weird.
Dunno why you’re getting downvoted, I’ve seen the nicotine/covid studies too.
It's for the first half. There's no objective evidence this approach works. The OP may also recover from colds quickly without the vitamin / protein intervention, may judge
symptoms differently, or may not accurately track results (e.g. dismiss cases where the opposite was true).
I do the same. Whenever I'm ill, I eat a lot of canned fish (no cooking required, and it's not nice cooking in a horrible headache).
I tend to get well very soon even if the illness has felt very bad. And sometimes when I don't do the same, for whatever reason, I remain ill much longer.
Every study I've seen says that vitamins make not difference in the majority of cases. Low vitamin levels can have cold like symptoms, and in that case vitamins will fix the problem.
Get a COVID test if you still can.
What’s the point? Genuine question, what advantage do you get from knowing if it’s covid or just a cold?
If you test positive in the first 3 days of having symptoms, you can get a Rx for Paxlovid which will shorten the duration and severity of symptoms, and help you avoid long covid or complications.
It answers OP’s question about why they are so miserable from a cold. It could be that it isn’t a cold.
It also means they should isolate longer to not spread the virus, and (IDK what is currently recommended these days) maybe seek antiviral treatments. Plus it can explain lingering symptoms after apparent recovery.
People still get a cold? I haven’t seen one since zicam became a thing. Lots of flu variations fucking people up though.
Their website advertises it as a homeopathic product, are you sure this isn’t a scam? It looks like its just some vitamins C and Zinc.
That’s basically all it is. Rhinoviruses don’t hang with zinc. The vitamin C is probably just to keep you from gagging on the taste.
It’s the quickest way to tell if it’s a cold or some other flu. If Zycam works, it’s some variant of a rhinovirus, and it’ll be dead in a couple days. If it doesn’t work, you’ve made some other viral friend. The other cold like strains don’t seem to give a shit about zinc, so if it’s not immediately obvious it’s working within about 30 minutes, move on to other remedies. If it is working, don’t over do it, you can fuck up your sinuses with too much zinc.
Luckily part of our body is the brain and some brains are very good at finding solutions to our body’s problems. Break the cycle by getting a decongestant spray, ibuprofen and a neti pot.
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/facts-about-the-common-cold explains why we don't have a vaccine but honestly you symptoms sound like you got the flu of some kind.
The Nyquil that helps you sleep is a Godsend when I feel like this.
Ikr I’m also suffering from this rn, but in my case throw on chills until I pop paracetamol and then I’m on a grill, bone aches like I got Raynaud’s in my legs… Yup it’s flu time!
Piercing headaches sounds more like Covid.
Some people get them from common colds. Just be happy you do not.
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
If it makes you feel any better, your microscopic attacker is not having a very good time with your body’s response either. You’re the undefeated champion in this arena so far, keep up the winning streak.
AmidFuror@fedia.io 6 hours ago
I don't know about who is the champion. The virus eventually fails to multiply in the host, but it meanwhile spreads to others.
Gutek8134@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
How about we consider everyone a champion?