I haven’t had even a cold since September 07. I don’t think I have ever had flu, an ear infection or anything else along those lines. I never get stomach cramps or feel sick. The only problems I’ve had in the last year have been self inflicted or due to mental health problems.
On the other hand, I have relatives who seem to be ill literally all the time. At the moment they have flu, and have had stomach bugs, ear aches, tummy aches, sore throats, and colds constantly throughout the year.
I understand so much of it is due to what environment people are exposed to, what their diet and lifestyle is like etc. However, in terms of the people I know and am comparing myself to, we all have relatively the same healthy diets, jobs, lifestyle, and live in the same area.
Do some people just feel illness more than others and suffer from it more because of…badluck?! Or is it hyperchondria?
I live with my sister and her family. I never used to even get a cold before I moved here. Since I got here almost 2 years ago, I’ve been sick almost non-stop. I am sick right now actually. I have a throbbing headache, my tonsils and ears hurt and I have a cough. Two weeks ago, I had a bad chest cold.
In the ‘olden days’ people who were vulnerable to illness would simply die at birth or in early childhood, and you’d be left with a majority of people who don’t get ill. In modern times people who are vulnerable to illness are far more likely to survive birth and childhood and so they remain in our society, making it seem like something is making a lot of people ill - Yes, it is being still alive.
Another theory is - The more a very small child is exposed to diseases, bugs, etc, the more oportunity their bodies have had to build defences against illness.
I am one of those people who never gets sick. It is a curse, because I never get any physiological warning signs that I’m destroying my body with alcohol. I’ve stopped doing that now.
So I would be glad for someone like Q.E.D. or Quadgop the Motorbike to point out how bad my theories are.
I got sick all the freaking time when I worked in pediatrics. Bunch of lil’ germ factories. Germs hung out everywhere and you couldn’t touch a thing that wasn’t possibly full of fresh cold viruses. Some people claim you have to challenge your immune system - well, I worked there for several years and the colds just did not stop coming. There are hundreds of varieties of them, after all, and each is different for your immune system.
I’ve worked with quite a few people with compromised immune systems (due to AIDS) since then, and have been very careful about my hygiene since, as I don’t want to pass anything on to these patients. Lots of hand washing, alcohol hand sanitizer, and just being careful about touching my face lest I transfer germs to my eyes or mouth. I haven’t really been that sick, unless I pick up some illness that my husband brings home first! I wasn’t as careful about it at the last job, but working with people who have true poor immune systems changed my habits.
So, my WAG is environment and awareness of infection control (washing hands, don’t touch around mucous membranes).
“Tummy trouble” can be a lot of things - indigestion, IBD, eating too much, poor food sanitation practices.
Plus, I think some people may just be complainers.
But why are they more vulnerable in the first place?
I very much agree with that, except my choice of poison was antifreeze. I have stopped that too though now. However, sometimes I used to think that if I did actually get sick occasionally I would notice how much I was damaging myself.
I think a lot of it is hypochondria. Some people get a sore throat or a stuffy nose or something and it’s a minor inconvenience; you take some Tylenol and go about your business. Other people get a sore throat and declare that they have a terrible cold and need two days off from work. I think a lot of it is basically an attention grab - “Oh woe is me I’m soooo sick boo hoo.” When it comes to run-of-the-mill illness, a lot of it is mental, and if you just plunge through and keep going, you can really reduce it by willpower alone.
Also, yeah, kids are disgusting little disease vectors who don’t wash their hands. I have an aunt who is a school nurse at an elementary school and I can’t for the life of me understand how she’s not sick all the time.
Sorry but I have to respond to that with a :dubious: Antifreeze?
My excuse is that Alcohol (not much better than antifreeze, or perhaps worse) is ingrained in society as something that it is normal to drink. Antifreeze… Isn’t.
Unless I’m being whooshed. There has to be an unconventional reason for drinking Antifreeze.
Edit, in answer to your question: Why are they vulnerable in the first place: Well again this is just what I can come up with in a few seconds - People have different levels of illness vulnerability for the same reason that people are different heights, have different colour hair, eyes, are more or less likely to gain weight, etc… People as a species are diverse because of how evolution (on a genetic level) works.
That isn’t really much of an explanation (people are different) so I apologise.
Maybe it is to do with what I said in my last post: It depends how much the person has been exposed to illness as a child. If a child is cocooned from illness he or she never gets a chance to build immunity. edit: I post these uninformed opinions in the hope that someone more informed will improve my knowledge/fight my ignorance
Yes I do agree with that. For example, I have large ulcers on the back of my tongue and throat at the moment. They aren’t a big deal, they hurt a little bit and more so when I eat, but I know they will go in a week or so with a lot of gargling and some medication I got from the pharmacist. However, the friends who are ‘ill’ a lot are really pushing me to go to the doctor and take some time out to rest. Huh!!! They are mouth ulcers, its not like my tongue is falling out!
My wife’s always sick - well, not always, but definitely more than normal people. There doesn’t seem to be any particular overall reason for this, no immune disorders or anything. She’s just alwys got something. Colds, sore throats, this, that, you name it. She doesn’t whine and doesn’t beg off work for it… she’s just frequently ill.
I almost never get sick. I used to get strep throat once a year and that was it, but I don’t get that anymore.
But we’ve always had the same number of children together; for most of our relationship we had none, and for the last 3 years, we’ve had one. Anytime the Small One got sick, my wife got sick,l but I never did, even though I take care of the Small One just as much. Neither of us works with kids. So why’s she sick more than me?
There does seem to be individual variation in susceptibility to colds and such, as well, and to the best of my knowledge, the reason for that really isn’t known.
Sort of. I have anorexia and am battling very much with that at the moment. However, I haven’t drunk any antifreeze or done any other form of self harm (cutting, overdoses etc) since August, and won’t ever again, which is huge progress!
And then there are people like me… As it happens, I have asthma. Normally it’s very well controlled, I’ll go months without symptoms and appear to be very healthy and vigorous. But if I get any upper respiratory virus, even a very minor, hardly-and-inconvenience one, I start to have problems breathing. That doesn’t mean great, wheezy gasps but I can have episodes of being short of breath and feeling quite crappy… so yes, I have the “terrible cold” and two days off work because the medication I take for the problem makes me hyper so I can’t sleep so I’m exhausted and sometimes short of breath and… well, your minor inconvenience really does make me genuinely ill. I’m sure I appear a raging hypochondriac to many, but on the other hand, I haven’t wound up in the ER for my asthma in over 14 years so I’m probably doing something right.
So it may well be that some of those “constantly sick” people are hypochondriacs, but others may have some trouble that you can’t see and aren’t aware of that makes them more vulnerable to one thing or another (like my asthma makes me much more vulnerable to colds). Even they may not be aware they have a problem - my asthma went undiagnosed for over 20 years. Some people may be diabetic and not know it.
WHY do people have these weaknesses? I dunno - roll of the genetic dice, probably. Why are some people left handed? Same reason, no one really know why.
I’m also around kids (as a teacher) all the time, and only get seriously sick 1-2 times a year. My theory is that my antibodies are very adaptable, and kill off anything which only has had few/no mutations, until the next majorly mutated strain hits the population.
