West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Trauma-san on July 20, 2005, 08:27:24 PM
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You catch a cold from a Virus, right?
My dad always told me if you sleep with a fan blowing on you at night, you'll catch a cold. Silliness, I thought; you catch a cold from a virus, not from being cold.
Well, it's been pretty warm lately so I bought a little fan for my room, and then set it up to blow around. After 3 nights of sleeping under it, I'm sick as a motherfucker, and a week and a half later, I'm still sick.
So; how did I catch a head cold just from being cold?
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I'm no biological expert, but perhaps being cold makes your body more supsceptible (I know spelling is way off) to allow for viruses to enter in.
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Yeah, but immediately? That doesn't make sense to me either.
Here's me just rambling about that:
Certainly I imagine that there are viruses in the air all around us, and that our body fights them off constantly.
I would think, though, that your immune system would have to be down for a long damn time for a virus to take hold, wouldn't it? I wouldn't think I could be cold for 6 hours or so, and that would be long enough for a virus to infect my body... even if my immune system was completely shut down all night, you'd think it'd kick back in in the morning when I warmed up and go to work. Plus, I sleep under covers so the rest of my body was warm.
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Well it could be that you already had the virus, just not to an extent that you notice. Just like all the food we eat, all the dishes we use have germs on them. They're just taken down to a safe level. You could have some virus trace in you that attacked your body while you got cold and therefore more vulnerable.
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Actually there are many different types of viruses that can cause a person to catch a cold, but some are more prevalent during the cooler seasons, others during the warmer ones. It has a lot to do with the change in relative humidity, and the viruses that are most commonly causing a person to catch a cold survive better in low humidity - cooler weather.
So if you turned your fan on, and helped relieve yourself of that humidity, you helped a virus stay alive and get into your body... that's just me talking out of my ass... taking a guess.
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*I think* the reason you caught a cold from sleeping by the fan is because you did indeed catch a virus, and what better to circuate a virus in the surrounding area than with a fan. If you were sleeping near it, a virus easily could have made its way into the draft heading to your body.
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it could be that your body was too busy keeping you warm and a virus slipped past the guards.
or coincidence.
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Also... my professor was talking about how when your nose is cool... it lowers the resistance to infection.... has something to do with the lining. He explained that this is the reason why we still catch colds even if we cover up and wear thick clothing during the cold weather.
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I don't know if this helps but I have slept with a fan on me for the past 3 weeks straight and I have no sign of a cold. I wake up feeling chilly, but not sick.
Maybe you got the virus from somewhere else and it's just a co-incidence that it was the same day. Unless it was psychological. I've heard that can happen.
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Infinite says it's because you're an infidel.
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You have AIDS.
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You have AIDS.
Mauzip, just because you realized you had AIDS around the same time you caught a cold, doesn't mean the two are correlated. You have AIDS because you're a gay motherfucker who takes it up the ass too much, not because you left a fan on.
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Janal, I hope you get banned again.
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yeah its pretty much being cold makes your immune system more prone to viruses. like easier to defeat. but its not the cold that actually makes you sick.
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It could be because the fan isn't clean and it's blowing stuff everywhere.
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i knew watching mr. wizard back in the 80's would pay off... 8)
check game
you can catch a cold any time of year
the viris that causes the cold is more likely to succeed in making you sick or effecting you when you're body isn't regulating a steady temperature. Now most places in the world you catch a cold when it's winter time, because that's when the most dramatic temperture changes occur, your body has to try harder to maintain a constant temp allowing the viris to take hold. BUT you can get the cold in the summer time just as easily....most places have relatively weak summers as far as tempertures go, 78, 80, 88 at their hottest....but if you're like me and live in a hot ass desert area like BAKErsfield where you get temps like 107, 110, 112, 104, ect your body tries harder to cool itself down and you can catch the cold, like i did just 2 weeks ago
fans, air conditioners, and shit CAN cause it though too, but like somebody said above me it's probably cuz you got your nose cold since that's the area of the body where most provention of airborn virises are contained.
this also goes with something one of my old science teachers who use to rock climb the rocky mountains said, he was telling us that if you're ever trapped in the snow it's important to keep your feet, hands , top of your head, and NOSE warm. if you do taht you'll have a better chance of surviving the elements
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i remember an argument about this not too long ago...
people said you cant get sick when youre cold its a virus... then what about the common cold ? i got sick a few weeks back, because i got cold... now whether its directly affected to me being cold or not, i still got sick... so even if its because the bodies imune system is weaker when your cold, its still in part the fault of the cold weather why you are sick...
my prognosis: get cold, get sick.
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I think this is a good example of Science trying really hard to explain something, when the old wive's tale was right about it the whole time. I think it shows that many times, the most commonly held answer is actually true, even though you don't know why and you can't prove it.
I feel a little better this morning, maybe I won't die afterall.
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Trauma, I know what you mean. A few weeks ago it was very hot here aswell and I had to put on my fan in my room and after 2 nights I started having a sore troath. So watch out putting a fan aimed at you at night.
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i also get a sore throat from using a fan in summer.. i believe its due to the fact that i'm accelerating pollen. its worse when grass has been cut..and also when my friend who suffers so badly from pollen allergy he can barely leave the house is at his worst.
It could be because the fan isn't clean and it's blowing stuff everywhere.
yeah... i just had the air-con system on my car sorted out and i got lots of info leaflets about how regular air-con servicing keeps down air borne contaminants. they had a picture in there that basically showed a car in an air bubble going through a town with its air-con on repelling all the germs.
also another thing.. i used to ALWAYS get ill once or twice during winter.. ever since i've been driving to work instead of walking or cycling i've been fine.
in direct answer to the thread. i thought they didnt know the cause of the "common cold" apart from preventative methods like not getting cold, wearing wet/damp clothes.
i have a similar question leading out of this..
how do you catch hypothermia "just from being really cold".. its a progression of the same problem.
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drink some water and you'll be fine
but its obvious when you sleep you sweat, and the cold air just helped you get sick
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i've slept with a fan, A/c window cracked in the winter near my head for a long time and i can't remember ever needing to blame a cold on doing this
it was probably coincidence
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O, in my case it isn't because the fan's dirty, because the fan's brand new, and the house doesn't have an excessive amount of Pollen in it, because the fans on with all the windows shut (as they always are)
Then you said all they know about the common cold is that you can prevent it by not getting cold, not wearing damp clothes, etc. but the whole thread is about finding out why that would make you sick, if a cold is a virus. Damp clothes shouldn't make you catch a virus.
Duck man, same thing, I know it's obvious that the cold made me get sick, I was just trying to figure out the relationship between the cold air, and a virus.