I have a kick-ass immune system. Bragging in this thread about it will probably bring it crashing down (see pamphlet “Irony And You”). I almost never get sick.
I can share a bed all night with a toddler coughing in my face and not get sick. I can cool the fevered brow of one with a stomach bug, reacting lighting fast with the basin to catch their vomit and not get sick. Everyone I know can fall to the flu and I don’t get sick.
The strange thing is this gift seemed to arrive whole and fully formed upon the birth of my first child. Before that I got sick all the damn time.
My first child was born very ill. They told me she would probably die (she did, when she was four months old). I was spending all my time in a hospital. I was getting very little sleep. I was under an enormous amount of stress. Occasionally it would cross my muddled mind, “all this. I’ll probably get sick.” But I never did. “Weird,” I thought.
And so it has been ever after, (3 subsequent children with average amount of childhood illness).
I’ve heard of women experiencing strange permanent changes after pregnancy…vision requiring glasses becoming 20/20, straight hair turning curly, this is my only explanation.
I let my immune system get regular exercise. I’ll wash my hands when appropriate, but I avoid hand sanitizer and I’m not afraid to touch doors.
Haven’t had a cold in three years, unlike the people in my office who enter and exit the restroom as if they’re about to do surgery. You know the types - they kick the door open, or they use the handicap opener. Never mind that I have seen people do their business in a stall, walk right past the sink and press the door opener button with their nasty unwashed hands. Little do they know how gross that plastic button gets, or that the copper in brass is a natural anti microbial.
I’ve been less susceptible to illness (and able to heal quickly, everything from knifenicks to surgical incisions, ever since I was a kid.
But during my first pregnancy and after my first child was born, I developed an aversion to shrimp so strong that I would be ill just looking at a picture of them. Then while pregnant with my third I found myself allergic to shellfish in the true sense, i.e. I get hives shortly after consuming them.
I know there’s no logical connection to pregnancy, but it’s hard not to associate these things with being pregnant.
I think there might be something to the “mommy immunity” idea, though, just by virtue of being exposed to so many things between baby illnesses and spending so much time waiting in pediatricians’ offices surrounded by everyone else’s sick children. So many women seem to experience this.
I just finished reading “Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold” by Ackerman. In it there was an explanation that people who never/rarely get sick actually have poor immune systems. If you read this book it’ll explain a lot about colds
I’ll try to paraphrase what’s applicable to your question. The cold virus has been found to cause no significant damage to the body that a person would actually notice. All the symptoms of the cold are caused by a persons immune system response to it. Some people have very active immune systems and are actually affected much more by colds than people with fairly inactive immune systems. You may be getting a cold and not even knowing you have it because you never develop symptoms. You will still develop the antibodies to get rid of the virus from your body within a week or two, but you’ll not notice you had it. Also, you can still be spreading the virus during its active phase.
Note, this really only applies to colds. Other diseases, like the flu, can cause real damage to the body that you would describe as a symptom.
No pregnancies, but I have a darned good immune system. About 25 years ago I was in a national AIDS vaccine study done by the NIH. The people that ran the local study group said that I had the strongest immune response of all the people throughout the country in the study (not many, because most people were scared of catching AIDS from the vaccine, plus you had to not have been vaccinated for smallpox and celibate). I’m 50 and it’s been probably 40 years since I’ve had an antibiotic. I went more than 25 years between doctor visits.
What do I attribute it to? Doctor-phobia, mostly. I’m scared silly of doctors (the vaccine study was an attempt to beach my fears while helping others) and would literally have to be unconscious to go to one. Once when I was in high school I went about 3 days without urinating. Hurt like hell, but the idea of going to the doctor for something so personal was mortifying. I got over it. I found you can get over most things if you just suck it up. My body’s been in sink-or-swim mode since I was old enough to stop telling my parents I was sick.
When I see people boasting of their superior, powerful immune systems (claims that are typically based on anecdotal evidence of avoiding common infections and not on actual serologic/molecular testing), I’m reminded of the influenza pandemic of 1918.
“An unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. This is noteworthy, since influenza is normally most deadly to weak individuals, such as infants (under age two), the very old (over age 70), and the immunocompromised…Modern analysis has shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults.”
Something similar (though considerably less deadly) occurred with the recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza, when serious and fatal cases struck younger people with good immune systems much more commonly than in typical flu outbreaks.
I’d rather have an average immune system with the occasional sniffles, than a powerful immune system that could drown my lungs in fluids from cytokine storm during pandemic flu, or suffer from autoimmune disease due to a powerful immune response gone haywire.
My immune system is so amazing it kicks my own ass. My explanation is autoimmune disease. I can’t remember the last time I had a cold, flu, or similar ailment though. I think I’d rather have the occasional cold.
I’m never sick. I had pneumonia and mono when I was a little kid and that’s it. Times in middle school when I was “sick” I just didn’t want to go to school. I don’t count my sinus problems as being sick since I’ve never had to stay home from work or school because of that. No secret, but I think some of it’s genetic. I had a great grandmother who was also never sick. I’m also not obsessed with avoiding germs wherever I go.
Mine is above average, but I think part of that is all the vitamins and supplements I take.
However I have heard if your immune system is too strong, you can be at higher risk for autoimmune disorders. Does anyone know if that is true, if too strong of an immune system means you might end up with some disorder where your body starts attacking itself?
My wife got a cold for the first and so far only time at age 42, when our daughter started preschool and was sick every other week that first winter. It was almost comical to watch her discover what coughing and sneezing felt like.
She eats a lot of fresh fruit, including literally an apple a day since she was a child. She is also a healthy vegetarian, maintains a healthy weight, gets regular moderate exercise, doesn’t consume alcohol or caffeine in any form. Her idea of junk food is a handful of almonds or peanuts.
I’ll get a very mild cold every couple of years, but true ass-kicking sick just does not happen to me. I unscientifically attribute it to not taking a lot of medicines growing up.
My father was a pharmacist, and knowing what was in all of the drugs, he tried to avoid giving us any. He wasn’t an anti-vaxer, we got all of our shots, but growing up the only medicine I ever got for sickness was Triaminic. My father figured we’d be better off fighting off illnesses on our own, and I guess he was right.
I consider my “gift” of developing life-threatening medical conditions every couple of years an unfair trade-off to rarely ever getting a cold or stomach virus regardless of whether I’m sneezed on, barfed on or otherwise coated in germs.
For example, I hadn’t been sick for about 3 years before I had my son, until I had eclampsia after I had him. I was fine for a couple of years after that…until I developed shingles. Things were going swimmingly for about 4 years, then I had an ectopic pregnancy. I also have a seizure disorder. But I can only think of once in the past four years where I’ve had a cold bad enough I had to even go to bed early, much less stay there for an entire day.
I do get sick, but not very often. I’m pretty well immune to colds… exotic stuff like hand-foot-mouth and Norwalk virus have gotten me recently, but I’ve been nursing my one year old through cold and flu season and have yet to need cold medicine so far this year (fingers crossed, knock on wood).
My parents are both pretty healthy people with no history of asthma. They raised me to eat my vegetables. I take a daily multivitamin. We had a cat when I was little. My mom wasn’t very careful about washing and sterilizing my toys when I was little, or insisting I wash my hands before meals. I guess all of that has a small effect on not getting sick later.
I used to get colds and flus a lot like a normal child until my autoimmune disease kicked in around puberty. Now I get sick maybe once every couple of years. Mainly sinus infections, but that’s related to something else.
While I’m probably average, my poor sister is the opposite. If there is ever a strain of ebola-aids-typhoid, I’m telling you now: she will have been patient zero.
She’ll get a totally normal cold that’s going round. In her, the virus will mutate to become a lethal zombie virus. What actually seems to happen is that it starts out as normal virus, but it hits her throat (she has asked over and over to have her tonsils out, but they won’t do it for adults). She’ll be in bed for a week with a fever and all the tinsel and bells on.
If you get the virus from her you’re done for. If you get it first you’re safe. I don’t know if this theory (of the virus actually getting worse when she gets it) makes any sense at all, obviously it’s totally anecdotal. But this is just what seems to happen every time.
No explanation. I think it’s just luck of the draw.
I was a preemie and therefore more sheltered than my sister was for the first six months. That’s about the only real difference I can think of between my sister’s and my early months.
I was vaccinated for smallpox but have no scar. The pediatrician told my mom that meant I was naturally immune. Same pediatrician encouraged her to have me hang out extra with my sister when she had mumps (do kids even still get the mumps?) “to get it out of the way”. I never got it. He said “she must be naturally immune.” (I have no idea whether he was actually a good pediatrician or wasn’t.)
I get colds once in a while, but rarely severe.
My son seems to have a pretty rocking immune system as well. He didn’t miss a day of school until 6th grade, and the days he has missed have been due to migraine headaches not getting coughed on.