Is it me, or is the whole country (USA) sick/ill?

[Philster]

Okay, whether I visit another city, have visitors in or sit through long conference calls, it is obvious to everyone involved that a large number of people from all over the USofA have some sort of heavy cough and 'chest cold' (bronchitis).

So, anyone else notice this...living it? Besides how wide spread it is --anecdtoal evidence -- the cough has some legs, as it is lasting a month or longer in the people I'v encountered (plus me).

Anyone else caught up in the vortex of coughing and chest colds?

(Philster lives in South Jersey, works in Philadelphia metro area)

[Lightnin']

Originally Posted by Philster

Anyone else caught up in the vortex of coughing and chest colds?

Nothing here in central Oregon that I've heard of. I'm going to try to head home early, but that's just 'cause I woke up way too early this morning, and I'm really sleepy.

Every bathroom in this area has signs up telling everyone to wash their hands... and it seems to work, as I see a lot more people washing up. Supposedly, that's the single best way to avoid getting sick. I've seen a lot fewer sick people here than in the last state I lived in.

[Anaamika]

Maybe it's the SuperFlu and we're all going to DIE, DIE, DIE.


Seriously, it's ragweed season, which is a big allergen. So that gets a lot of people. It could just be that.

No one's sick around here at the minute.

[934spe]

We ALWAYS have sick people in our office. It seems that no one believes in using sick days for when you are really sick, but instead to come in and infect the rest of us. I don't know if this is truly an american thing or not, but it seems to be what happens where I work...

[Colophon]

When I saw the title of this thread, I didn't think it was going to be specifically about a cough. I thought it was going to be about the fact that everyone in America seems to be on some kind of prescription medicine. Or at least everyone that posts here. It's amazing the number of people that mention the pills/tablets/inhalers they routinely use. I don't know if the internet-using demographic is especially unhealthy, or if Amwerican doctors just routinely overprescribe to keep people happy, or what, but it seems that selling prescription drugs is the business to be in, Stateside.

[davenportavenger]

Originally Posted by Colophon

When I saw the title of this thread, I didn't think it was going to be specifically about a cough. I thought it was going to be about the fact that everyone in America seems to be on some kind of prescription medicine.

Maybe it's the drugs (both prescription and non) that are leading to the cough. People taking antibiotics when they have the flu for the placebo effect, and then they really catch a bacterial infection and are totally knocked out by it. Also it is my sincere belief that "babying" an illness makes it last longer, since your body subconsciously reacts to your overreaction to the illness and suppresses your immune system slightly. If you're a human body, where would you rather be, at home drinking chicken soup or at work ignoring the infection? That is one of the reasons I don't stay home sick from work, well besides the fact that I would rather use my sick days for fun.

I'm sick-ish with what I assume is the flu for the first time in like four years and I'm just going to ignore the thing since that has always worked for me in the past. If I don't see it, it's not really there! Bacterial infections, now that's a whole other story.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by davenportavenger

? That is one of the reasons I don't stay home sick from work, well besides the fact that I would rather use my sick days for fun.
.

I agree with the rest of what you said, but this is crap, thank you very much. Please keep your nasty germs away from your coworkers! So you deliberately set out to infect your coworkers?

Besides, I can tell you at least in my case - when I work through a cold I'm sick for two weeks. When I stayed home this year I got better in 5 days - half the time.

[Marlitharn]

I share computers in a tiny ill-ventilated basement room for 12 hours a night with a gaggle of germy co-workers. I fully predict that I and everyone I work with are going to be sick as dogs beginning next week and continuing until May, Clorox wipes be damned.

Unfortunately, calling in sick isn't an option right now. In order for us to work with a skeleton crew, we need 12 qualified dispatchers; we need 16 to work with full crews. Currently we have 9. I'm thinking of taking out an ad in the local paper begging people to not have any heart attacks, structure fires, or gang fights until we get our trainees up to speed.

[Trunk]

Folks still seem pretty healthy around me.

But many years, I notice that it seems to go around in large quantities after school starts -- college and EL-HI. Everyone is coming into contact with some new germs they haven't experienced in a while.