How can I be sick AGAIN?!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Subtitle: Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!

Since October, I’ve been getting some sort of cold thing every two frickin’ weeks. By the calendar, not just my whiny shoddy memory. I’ve never been sick this much. I’ll be sick for a little over a week, get 4 or 5 days off, and then I’m sick again. Wah! Don’t like it!

None of my plant friends are helping anymore. The OTC cold medicines are for crap. I don’t know why I keep taking them, I might as well pour them down the drain for all the good they’re doing.

The whole family keeps getting things and passing them around, so it’s not like I’m immune compromised or anything, we just keep bringing new viruses on board. My hands are cracked from washing them so much, the toddler is starting to get a little OCD with the new fun handwashing game and still we’re getting each other sick. It sucks. Watching babies while one is sick sucks. Watching sick babies while one is sick sucks even more.

sigh Mundane and pointless enough for you? :frowning:

2

Does it help to know that this seems to be the winter for getting sick multiple times? I’ve had two colds - which never happens. And multiple people at work have had the same thing.

Hope your string of icky colds ends soon!

GT

3

I feel for you - but at least you have had a few days off. I have had sinus trouble - constantly - since October. Just for fun, the body decides to add in cough, headache, muscle ache, whatever, every few weeks.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I want to have my sinuses removed.

:sniffle:

4

I hope you feel better soon :frowning: I haven’t gotten sick recently myself, but mother nature is screwing with me too - my last period began Feb 2nd, and this one arrived early and began the 28th. That’s so not fair. February is the shortest month, too!

Here’s an article with tips to avoid getting sick http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=12787_0_8_0_C but I’m not sure if it’ll be much help against a tenacious baby-cold. I wonder if the exercise part is valid, since I’ve exercised a whole lot more than usual this winter, and have been sick a whole lot less. Could be coincidence, though.

5

As a first year teacher I managed to catch the flu and two colds within 8 weeks! I feel your pain.

6

Mundane: A+

Pointless: C

I’m sick too, so want a cookie? I mean that in a friendly way.

7

I haven’t been sick in 15 years or more. I have no idea why. Everyone around me is wheezing and sniffling and coughing and I just sail through each band of viral hell. I don’t even work at it. I smoke, I don’t take vitamins…we’re just immune, I guess.

What kind of “sick” is it? I wonder if you might not have a touch of pneumonia (if it’s a chest thing). I had it once, and I had recurring bouts of coughing for a good year afterward.

8

Do you take multivitamins? I got quite sick after my mom died; a couple bouts of cold and bronchitis and the like. I figured my immune system was down from all the stress so started multivitamins - not megadoses, just your regular vitamin that has the RDA of vitamins. Big difference! I’d been one of those kids that always had colds but since I started taking a daily vitamin, my resistance and recovery times are both much better. There have been many times that colds and flus have circulated through the office and passed me right by.

9

Herbalists don’t get sick. Knock it off.

I used to get a virus about once or twice a year. Since losing weight, I can’t remember an actual virus that’s put me down like they used to.

10

Thanks for the pity party, folks. It does help, oddly enough, to know I’m not some mutant and that others are having a rough year of it as well. I was seriously starting to wonder about the whole “sick building syndrome” thing, as we moved in here in May, but I’m sure it’s infinitely more likely that it’s just a particularly nasty viral season.

SnakesCatLady, you poor thing. Have you been in to see the ENT? (Please don’t make me spell otolaryngologist :wink: ) My mom had similar, constant sinus issues and they discovered her sinuses were calcifying over, and had actually filled themselves completely up with bone deposits in many places. No wonder she felt like her head was a solid mass! It was! They went in through her nose and basically carved out new sinuses for her, and the difference was amazing.

It’s been mostly head cold stuff and sore throat stuff, with some chest congestion and coughing stuff at the end of each cycle. Last week I had laryngitis - total voice gone whisper only for three days, and croaky creaky voice for three days and then sexy husky voice for two days. Now it’s a sore throat and my right ear is making it’s existence known more than it should - not quite to “pain” yet, but that pressure buildup before the ow-whimper stage starts. It really hard to tell if it’s one constantly changing thing or a string of different things - while I get “better”, I’ve not gotten to the point of blissful unawareness of internal body parts that usually signals “totally well”.

The irritating thing is that I have a cracked tooth that really needs attention (half of it’s just gone now, but the other half is still in my mouth), but I just can’t face having dental surgery with a headcold. So it’s been going untreated all winter - it doesn’t generally hurt, but I can’t imagine it’s getting any better with gaping hole getting food caught in it, you know?

Quiddity Glomfuster, I haven’t been taking vitamins. I think I’ll start. Couldn’t hurt, and maybe it will help.

laughing I know! What’s up with that?! Usually my plant friends help me out, but this year they’ve turned their little leaves up in disgust. I think it might be because I’ve gotten lazy and I’ve been using commercially prepared standardized plant extracts, against my better judgment. No wonder herbs have such a bad rep if this is all most people have available. Time to order some bulk herbs and start tincturing my own again. My favorite herbalist friends are coming over on Monday to make cough syrup with me - I can’t believe I’ve been taking Robitussun for 5 months (on and off)! Why? It doesn’t work!

ETA: Thanks for the cookies. :wink:

11

Heh-heh. Mr. K thought “more is better” the last time he took Robitussun (swigging down a shooter or two per hour for a few days). He started with the robo-trippin’ and freaked himself out so bad he hasn’t touched it since. He never did feel “better” from it.

12

Sending healing thoughts your way.

13

Take care, Kalhoun, I could’ve posted that exact same comment last year. Now, inexplicably, I’m sharing the virtual vaporizer with Why.

Here, WhyNot, have some nice hot rose hips tea with lemon and honey.

…and pass the friggin’ Kleenex, will you?

14

Right now I’m just sitting back enjoying my new bass voice despite the annoying sore throat. It’s almost as deep as Barry White.

You have to make good use of these things while you have them.

15

There are times in my life when I’ve been a cold magnet. Any most of my colds last at least two weeks, sometimes longer. Most recently, I had a two week cold last September, just in time for my vacation, and it lasted into October. Then I caught another one in January – much worse than the previous one, with some pretty impressive coughing fits that got bad enough that I had to call in sick one day. Nasty. Fortunately that was a one-weeker. And this has been at a time when I’ve been eating fruits and veggies and taking vitamins and generally trying to ward off the dreaded bug. Fat lot of good that’s done.

I think I had a third one in February, but it was so minor and lasted less than a week that I barely even noticed it. It manifested mostly as a minor runny nose and a general blasé feeling.

Several years ago I had five colds in a row, most of which lasted 3 weeks or so. It was quite nasty.

Hope you feel better soon! Just take it easy, have some chicken soup and drink some hot chocolate. Mmm … hot chocolate. :slight_smile:

16

Wait, you mean that’s fixable? I found out about a year ago that my upper sinuses (the ones behind the nose and between the eyes) weren’t there, but from the way the doctor talked it sounded like they thought it had always been that way.

Does this have a name that I can run past my doctor?

17

You have my deepest sympathy and my complete empathy! I know how much it sucks to be sick so often - I haven’t been more than three weeks without a coughing fit since August. Blood tests show nothing wrong, chest x-rays came back clear so the doc says it’s just one of those things. Gah! So frustrating! I thought I had whooping cough in October/November because it was so severe, but the blood tests said nope. Luckily it’s eased off a little.

18

Ugh, I’m sorry you guys are so sick. Seriously, I feel your pain - ever since Baby B started daycare in October, we’ve been passing around cold after cold after cold. In January/February, I could NOT get rid of my congestion. I finally went to the doctor and found out that I’ve been fighting allergies for the past month, not a cold.

I really do think it’s the weather bouncing back from cold to warm to bitterly cold to warmish to cold. I’m hoping we’ll all be better as soon as spring hits.

E.

19

Try some Airborne too, though be careful to note the amounts of vitamins you are taking so you don’t overdose.
Take care!

20

Everyone living north of the 40th line of latitude (around San Fransisco) should be taking supplemental vitamin D (for example, cod liver oil) all winter, because we just don’t get enough sun to synthesize vitamin D (regardless of sun exposure). Since I’ve been taking cod liver oil, I still get the occasional cold, but I shrug them off in a couple of days of being mildly sick instead of 7-10 days, and I don’t get as many as I used to. For example, this last miserable flu that is going around, my husband was laid out flat for four or five days, and I felt a little sick for two days (I don’t think I would have even gotten the flu if he hadn’t gotten it - the timing of my illness indicates I got it from him).

People with dark skin should also consider taking a vitamin D supplement, because dark pigmentation interferes with skin synthesis of vitamin D.