So yesterday morning I did a fair bit of shouting (reason not important 
).
A half-hour or so later, on the way to work, I noticed my throat felt a bit sore, and obviously put it down to the yelling.
However, through the day it progressed into a proper burning and swollen-feeling throat, together with the red eyes, blocked-up ears and slightly feverish feeling you’d associate with a cold. No cough/sneezing, though. The following day I still have those symptoms.
So is it possible for vocal abuse to cause cold-like symptoms? Either from direct damage or from causing abrasions that open up the throat to bugs? Or is it just coincidence? (I rarely get colds, maybe a couple of mild ones a year on average.)
You could create the situation for an infection of some kind to get worse because of some physical damage. Since you’re talking about this happening in a matter of hours you must have had an infection already and damage to your throat could only make the inevitable symptoms seem worse. Despite all that I’d guess shouting had nothing to do with it and didn’t harm your throat at all, it just made you notice the infection you already had which would have worsened through the day anyway.
This has happened to me several times before, although not after shouting but after having choked on a bit of food (not severely, just “down the wrong pipe” type thing). I got a scratchy throat from the incident and then developed a cold by the next day.
I attribute it to me still having my tonsils but that might not be related.
Not sure of the science behind it but yes, I’ve experienced this too!
Not a doctor, but I suspect it’s possible to experience cold symptoms after an injury without having the cold virus. Remember that the symptoms (scratchy throat, fever, excess phlegm) are caused by your body in its attempt to fight the virus, not caused by the virus itself. Could this be your body’s way of trying to heal a physical injury in that area?
I also rarely get colds and have experienced the above event. In my case I believe it was a coincidence as my throat was sore from yelling at a concert where I was also exposed to hundred’s of other people’s germs.