Bug - January 18, 2012

I took Anya out to the park by Daniel's school this morning, and then at lunch. It was winter. there was a light dusting of snow. She romped and did her business. Not much else to report.

Kaff kaff.

It's a really mild bug. Scratchy throat, and if I don't take Sudafed (the real stuff) every 6 hours or so, I start getting a congestion headache. That's about it. I thought it was a sore throat from singing too hard Monday night, when I woke up Tuesday, but it's not. It's a bug.

It's going to be a lousy couple days not to be close to 100%: the low tonight will be -5°F, with high winds. Calmer tomorrow, but it's not going to break 10°F until the weekend.

We are such wimps this winter.

I do need to be a little careful, though. My 45°N project from a couple years ago ended up sidelined after a bout of pneumonia. Ingrid's had pneumonia too, and my dad has had a few run-ins with it. It's nothing to laugh at.

Ingrid was a little surprised when we started living together at how much I take care to be all bundled up against chilly drafts, not just for comfort (she gets that) but for health. As she says, she was raised on the germ theory of infection, and not the "catching a chill" theory. I was raised in getting all wrapped up, especially the neck, when I got sick.

Well, there is some basis for this. Mechanically, of course, colds are caused by viral infections, not going out and "catching your death of cold." But if you really do get chilled, your body doesn't have as much energy to fight off infection. World War I soldiers were a lot more likely to get sick in the cold, wet trenches than they were in the back lines, even though they were exposed to the same infected fellow soldiers. Chilled muscles tend to cramp up (that's one of my personal bugaboos). And there's that study I cited a couple weeks ago, that says people in uninsulated houses tend to miss more school and more work than the equivalent population in an insulated house.

But other recent studies show that chilled people exposed to infections are just as likely to catch a cold virus as warmer subjects. Or that getting chilled will prolong infection.

So, maybe it has no effect on infection. At least it keeps us comfortable. Here's my guess: does the cold stress you? Because stress absolutely has an effect on susceptibility to the common cold. It suppresses immune reactions generally. So: do you enjoy going out in the cold? Does sleeping with the window open in January make you wake up fresh and energized? Bully for you. But if being cold makes you miserable, if it weighs you down and causes you stress... well there you are, sneezing.