I rarely get sick. I have OCD and wash my hands constantly. I stay away from children, old people, drunk people, and the mentally handicapped. They are the most likely to sneeze/couch/puke on you and not wash their hands after taking a crap.
Wow…assholish but with logic I can’t fault!
P.S. Kids and toddlers are fucking poop factories.
Bolding mine.
As much as everything else in my body has been screwed thanks to my thyroidectomy and an ever-shifting thyroid med dosage (I swear it keeps jumping around because it likes to annoy me), one thing I haven’t had to worry about is catching either a cold or the flu :knocks wood: I can’t remember the last time I’ve had either.
My allergies, however, have become much worse. I suppose that makes up for it 
I must be a freak too. I’m 46, and almost never get sick. I get a cold maybe once a year, and the 24 hour flu maybe every-other year. That’s it.
I do not take any prescription medications, have never taken pain or psycho meds, and I never go to the doctor. In fact, I don’t even have a doctor.
I won’t say I never get sick, but I do get sick infrequently. No more than one bad cold a year, and many years I don’t get one at all. My toddler gets sick about four times as often as I do.
- Good genetics. I think my nasal cavities drain well, which helps a lot. Never had any kind of allergy to plug up my works either.
- I sleep a lot. I always have. Until a year or so ago, 9 hours every night. Now at 33 years old I’m down to 8.
- My mother never made me wash my hands before I ate, so my immune system got exercise early.
And lastly,
- I do have an autoimmune disorder, indicating general hyperactivity in that area.
She needs to start developing tonsilloliths. I had the same problem, getting sick frequently, terrible allergies, sore throats, and more. Then, one day when I was 32, one of my tonsils started itching. When I scratched it, out popped a tonsillolith. Ghastly smell. I kept getting them, and reported it to my doc, who sent me to an ENT, who looked and said “only thing to fix them is remove your tonsils.” Had them out the next month, and I’ve got to say, it’s cleared up at least half my colds. I no longer get sore throats or ear infections either.
But, it takes a minimum three weeks to heal, and it sucks dead dog while that’s happening.
Totally unscientific but I seem to get sick about half as much as those around me. The downside is that when I do its a doozy. If I get a cold I never get the sniffles, I get miserable heads about to explode from the pressure. Luckily it happens less than once a year usually.
I am very rarely sick. I attribute it to avoiding stress (fix it or leave it), getting plenty of sleep, trying to stay moderately active, not smoking or doing drugs, and trying to eat something healthy each day.
I do get sick, but it’s pretty rare.
Jokingly, I attribute it to genetics. I come from a long line of hardy peasant stock.
If they were not sick, they worked in the fields.
If they were sick, they still worked in the fields.
So, it was better not to be sick.
While it is true that my family in general tends to be in good health, I think this is more luck than anything else.
I also suspect my personal tolerance might be set a bit high. Sure, there are some days I feel a little run down, but I would not call this sick. Other people I have met, seem to call this same thing “coming down with something” and stay home from work.
A cold once in awhile (like now), but that’s it. I’ve never had an infection (from a cut) in my life. I lived in Africa for three years and never had so much as a cold the entire time, while others were coming down with all manner of nasty bugs. I had a flu bug when I first got back from Vietnam, but have dodged that bullet ever since. Had food poisoning once, which I don’t care to repeat; it served the purpose of making 40-140 my cooking mantra.
Richard North: I can’t tell you how happy I am that I’ll never be blessed with your proximity, nor will my mentally handicapped niece have to be subjected to your presence. The rules of this forum prevent me from responding as I would wish, but you seem to end up in the Pit with regularity, so no worries.
I have a very good one also. Perhaps it’s from living in different parts of the world as a kid and being exposed to all kinds of germs.
Ironically, I was just telling my boyfriend that I haven’t had a cold in four years and today I’m home with a sore throat and a cold! Bleh.
I’d like to go over to doper Richard North’s place and touch everything, then cough and sneeze in his general direction. Dude, having OCD is not an excuse to be a dick.
When younger, I got them as often as anybody else.
Now, never, even tho I am around kids all day long. I woke up today with a slight back throat scratchiness and a bit of a ‘hocker’ that I spit out, but otherwise am fine. I likewise about this time a year ago started to develop flu symptoms one day. The next day they were all gone.
Yes, I had my tonsils taken out when I was 15.
If anyone is curious how that irony thing worked out for me, having started this thread more than a year ago, I still do not catch infectious diseases, but this past year has been full of various weirdo health problems, including my hip, my foot, my shoulder and my right ovary (probably) and also the possible failure of my tubal ligation (I started a thread about that one if you’re curious). Oh and hemorrhoids.
So be warned, bragging about your immune system is dangerous to your health!
Well for me its a combination of growing up in a rural environment so I was exposed to all kinds of bugs, the fact I never take meds until I REALLY need them, and the fact I just will myself not to let an illness get me down.
I really do think mental issues take a big part of it. I swear some people LIKE being sick.
One vote for the opposite of Richard North’s approach - I live in the infectious disease cespool of a pediatric practice and not only do I virtually never get sick, none of my partners do either. Of it could be that those who get sik easily know better than to choose Peds. … I was a youngest of five before that. Probably I was sick through toddler and preschool years (though as the baby of five no one noticed or cared) and have been updating through constant exposure ever since. And oh, with three dogs I have no issue eating things that have dropped on the floor.
That telomere article is interesting.
I suspect some research will also come out correlating certain sorts of diverse microbiomes with infectious disease resistance in the next few years … they may even be believable.
I’m 36 and hardly ever get physically sick.
I am not crazy enough to think that I am especially more conscientious than my sicklier brethren or endowed with a superior outlook. Because I know I’m not. I have just been very lucky. At least up to this point, because tomorrow’s another day.
Tomorrow I may wake up with rheumatoid arthritis like my mother or fibromyalgia like my father. Or awful allergies like my sister. I frequently meet people who were pictures of health well into their 30s and 40s, and then everything falls to pieces on them.
I just wanted to add–recent research seems to indicate that some mental illnesses, including schizophrenia have been linked to autoimmune diseases. Some researchers may think certain mental illnesses can act as an early warning sign that an individual is dealing with an autoimmune disorder.
So I guess you can say that if I WERE to wake up tomorrow and find myself laid out by rheumatoid arthritis (or diabetes…or multiple sclerosis), I wouldn’t be shocked. But I do count my blessings that this hasn’t happened yet.
I’m reminded of when I’m work and I hear coughing and sneezing and sniffling and I never seem to be affected. I do have Hashimoto’s disease and hay fever so it could be the supercharged immune system!
I was the product of a natural birth in 1958 and breast-fed, grew up in various roundly unhygeinic environments in communes, rural communities and several different continents. Drank (actually milked) raw goat and cow milk, and pretty much did not encounter convenience or processed foods until my teens and even then rarely ate it. I did however have every vaccination known to humankind at the time due to the frequent moving from country to country as a kid. Malaria, dengue fever, you name it, I have been vaccinated for it.
I am 56 and have had three colds in my adult life (since age 19; I don’t recall prior to that) and the flu- real, nasty, real flu - once. The only days I’ve taken off of work or school for illness have been for bad back flare-ups, and that’s been maybe…I don’t know, three or four or five days in my life? Plus a few days two years ago for that ghastly flu which really kicked my butt.
I have never had a flu shot, I’ve taken antibiotics maybe three or four time in my adult life (all for dental issues - I do have bad teeth that have required a lot of work) and I do not use antibiotic or antibacterial creams or potions on cuts or abrasions or anything like that. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with such medications or salves, but because I’ve never felt I needed to. My body seems to fix itself without help. I got a new doctor in October 2013 and he insisted on every blood test and cardiac test and pee test and whatever and apparently I am alarmingly healthy.
So I think I qualify as someone having an “amazing” immune system but pretty much my family and my siblings are all like me. We do not get sick, we do not get infections, we do not have chronic health issues. So personally I think it’s just very lucky genetics, coupled with robust exposure to birth and bodily fluids building a strong internal biodiversity from birth, coupled with a diverse and dirty upbringing, and perhaps having lots of vaccinations helped too.
In the last 15 years or so, since my late teens, my incidence of colds/flu have significantly reduced. I haven’t had one in a number of years, though sometimes it feels like my body might be on the verge of getting sick, then doesn’t. For example, over Easter weekend I was around my snotty niece, my sister who had a cold, and a few other sickly people. By the second day, my throat felt a teeny bit sore and I felt slightly run down. I was sure I was getting a cold. Nope. 24 hours later and I feel fine. Maybe I did get a cold and that’s all I felt? I dunno.
In this time, I’ve also have six miscarriages (no term pregnancies). I have had the standard autoimmune panel run through my RE with no serious findings, but I’m pretty convinced there is a connection.
I will also say that I am not overly ‘clean’. I will wash my hands only if I use the washroom, and sometimes not even that if I’m at home. Other then that, unless I’m doing the dishes or showering, I don’t wash any extra. I don’t use antibacterial anything. I will grab on to questionable door handles / transit holding on thingies usually, and not wash my hands after. I’m of the ‘exposure to germs are good for you’ school.