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It's that time of year. For me, I always get a cold from a germy family member or coworker right after thanksgiving or xmas, and usually a few more times throughout the year. I usually average about 4 colds a year. They're usually just plain ole common colds that last week or so, I haven't gotten anything major since I started getting flu shots.. So I think they do help. I keep myself clean and wash my hands often, but if someone else has a nasty bug and they get too close, chances are I will too. I had a cold around the beginning of October, and today my throat is starting to get scratchy, so here we go again :(

So how about you.. how often do you get a cold? What are some of the things you do to make it better?

For me I stick to the standard stuff.. lots of homemade chicken soup & tea & advil & cough drops (not halls, yuck). Over the counter cough medicines never do anything for me. Some people swear by mucinex or robotussin.. for me they're just money sinks.

My life can be divided into two eras: Before Kids (BK) and After Kids (AK).

BK, I very rarely got colds or flu. AK, if they get the merest sniffle, I seem to come down with weapons grade man-flu. Whatever cold they get is immediately multiplied by 10 on exiting their bodies.

Seriously, my kids are walking biological weapons factories...

I don't have kids, but most of my friends and coworkers do, making them unwitting carriers.

Everytime I come into the OT!

OT Cooties!

Not too often given I work in a school but I’m got ill around half term at the end of october and never really got better. Only took one day off though, I actually lost my voice so couldn’t teach.

Too often.
Diabetes sucks.

I am virtually never sick. The worst I get is a runny nose once or twice a year.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Too often.
Diabetes sucks.

I hear that.

On one hand, I have a life limiting condition, so technically I'm always sick, on the other, especially given I have to take immunosuppressive drugs to manage my condition, issues not directly connected to the disease are fairly uncommon.

It helps to be a double hard bastard though, I remember one occasion while hospitalized I was still getting up and walking about (bathroom breaks etc) when one nurse looked at my latest blood results, looked at me and just said "how are you even standing up?"

What level of cold are we talking here? I've never had a cold that has meant I've had to stay home in order to nurse myself back to health but I've almost always got the sniffles, from Autumn all the way through to Spring.

I work in a school and often get low level cold symptoms at the start of the school year and at the end of terms. It's never caused me to miss work though. The only days off I've had in over 10 years were in November 2016 when I had 2 days ill with norovirus. Man that is an experience I do not want ever again.

Before I was a teacher, I did not used to get ill very often. Since becoming a teacher, I get ill more frequently. I've also started travelling over an hour in each direction on the London Underground to get to and from work so that is a big source of germs too. I think the issue is that I get exhausted and then my immune system can't cope. I've had 5 sick days just since September, and also been so ill for four weekend days that I would have been off sick on a weekday. That is even more than usual. I am generally off a lot more in the Autumn than Spring or Summer though.

I've been sick the past week, and got sick back in march/may. But it's not common for me to get sick to where i'm running a fever twice a year. Usually one family member gets sick, and then it cycles through everybody in the household. I'm an alcoholic though so my immune system is not as good as it once was.

Pretty much whenever i need to go do something important.

I think its the stress that makes normally meh sickness worse.

I'm sick the morning after I drink, if that counts.

Otherwise, rarely more than a simple cold for a week once a year.

Almost never. However I have a ten month old that will be going to nursery next year so I suspect that things will change.

Up until I was 40, rarely got illnesses. Would mostly go to doctor after injury if it wasn't serious enough for ER but more serious than "slap a bandaid" on it.

It was frequently the case that my medicare (Aus) card would expire (10 year expiry) between drs visits.

Now, I don't get sick as such, I just have to go to the doctor more frequently because after you pass 40, bits of you stop working as well as they used to.

I have a pretty robust immune system, because I rarely get more than a few sniffles. One thing I sometimes do when I do start to have symptoms of the common cold is to immediately start drinking plenty of orange juice and taking cough syrup. Usually that kills it before I get severe symptoms. I've never been seriously sick in my adult life, just the occasional cold or flu, and not very severe flu at that. The worst I ever got was when I had chicken pox as a child. That was one of the most miserable weeks of my entire life.

Sick enough to have to miss work? Once, maybe twice a year.

Runny nose that's annoying but not keeping me to a bed happens bit more often.

 filbert wrote:
My life can be divided into two eras: Before Kids (BK) and After Kids (AK).

BK, I very rarely got colds or flu. AK, if they get the merest sniffle, I seem to come down with weapons grade man-flu. Whatever cold they get is immediately multiplied by 10 on exiting their bodies.

Seriously, my kids are walking biological weapons factories...

This is exactly how it is for me. My three daughters really could be nurglings.

 Necros wrote:
It's that time of year. For me, I always get a cold from a germy family member or coworker right after thanksgiving or xmas, and usually a few more times throughout the year. I usually average about 4 colds a year. They're usually just plain ole common colds that last week or so, I haven't gotten anything major since I started getting flu shots.. So I think they do help. I keep myself clean and wash my hands often, but if someone else has a nasty bug and they get too close, chances are I will too. I had a cold around the beginning of October, and today my throat is starting to get scratchy, so here we go again :(

So how about you.. how often do you get a cold? What are some of the things you do to make it better?

For me I stick to the standard stuff.. lots of homemade chicken soup & tea & advil & cough drops (not halls, yuck). Over the counter cough medicines never do anything for me. Some people swear by mucinex or robotussin.. for me they're just money sinks.

I get sick rarely, usually a cold here and there. Or the occasional "24 hour bug". The par for course kinda stuff.


I tend to take care of myself.

 filbert wrote:
My life can be divided into two eras: Before Kids (BK) and After Kids (AK).

BK, I very rarely got colds or flu. AK, if they get the merest sniffle, I seem to come down with weapons grade man-flu. Whatever cold they get is immediately multiplied by 10 on exiting their bodies.

Seriously, my kids are walking biological weapons factories...

This is exactly what I was coming in here to say, but hey! This is easier. I'm also a little older (40s) and my 5yo and 1yo just FLOOR me with the bugs they bring home. Not fun!

I get sick about once a year. I fake sick to get out of work probably 4-5 times.

 filbert wrote:
My life can be divided into two eras: Before Kids (BK) and After Kids (AK).

BK, I very rarely got colds or flu. AK, if they get the merest sniffle, I seem to come down with weapons grade man-flu. Whatever cold they get is immediately multiplied by 10 on exiting their bodies.

Seriously, my kids are walking biological weapons factories...

So much this whilst as I dont have my own I cover the school run for my Nephews,due to their parents work patterns. Over the last few years I've managed to contract a truly staggering range of lurges, and then just when I figure I've caught everything going and am largely immune the older one goes to Secondary for a whole new range of germery, prior to that maybe once or twice a year

 filbert wrote:
My life can be divided into two eras: Before Kids (BK) and After Kids (AK).

BK, I very rarely got colds or flu. AK, if they get the merest sniffle, I seem to come down with weapons grade man-flu. Whatever cold they get is immediately multiplied by 10 on exiting their bodies.

Seriously, my kids are walking biological weapons factories...

This is my experience. I went almost a decade without any cold more serious than the sniffles. With the kid--I've had some real strange illnesses, like the kind where the PA calls in all her colleagues and the doctor to check out my symptoms.

My wife usually gets it worse than I do, though. It is nature's way of making sure she isn't the one who has to clean the vomit.

On average, once or twice a year. Last couple years i'll end up with low grade pnuemonia. Last year it was so hard to diagnose that the docs thought I had something wrong with my heart instead, and I had every test possible done to determine what was wrong, before they figured out it was my lungs.

Let me tell you, MRI stress tests on the heart SUCK.

Almost never. The occasional bout of sniffles. Occasionally when I go to Africa/South America/the Middle East or offshore there's a new bug my immune system has to get used to, but generally even then it's usually just low-level compared to the rest of the boat.
I think I've gotten so many weird bugs I'm just immune to almost everything now.

Never been sick enough to take leave, but will have the sniffles practically every month or two.

Had scarlet fever once when I was 5, so I can't really remember it, and been off from recovering from surgery (not caused by illness), but otherwise not much.

 Easy E wrote:
Everytime I come into the OT!

OT Cooties!

And you just gave us all your OT cooties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Too often.
Diabetes sucks.

Coming from a family of diabetics, and having seen the crap they've had to go through, I feel for ya, man.

I get sick often. Because it is the norm for me I don't always notice. So I have to be really sick for it to take me down.

Very rarely.

I haven't gotten the flu in at least 15 years but I do get a cold every once in a while. Fortunately, I haven't missed a day of work due to illness in a couple years, but I think that might have been food related... damn Peruvian chicken!