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ottpro t1_ist0kot wrote

Reply to comment by x_BryGuy_x in If I am just recovered from a typical cold (5 days long / 2 days off work), am I now more immune to all infections for a period of time, or less? by [deleted]

So ppl that get colds more than once per winter (north east USA, Canada) are catching a second different variant?

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Revolutionary-Copy71 t1_ist3cx6 wrote

Yep. There's a few hundred rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, enteroviruses, and adenoviruses that can cause what is commonly thought of as the "common cold". I used to work with toddlers, and despite our best efforts to mitigate spread of infections...it's toddlers, stuff is gonna spread. I'd get 6-8 colds per year. I seriously felt like I was always in some stage of sickness lol.

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JetKeel t1_istkpg0 wrote

And correct me if I’m wrong, even if you catch the same virus after losing immunity, it is still possible to experience very different symptoms. This can be caused by how long the virus had a “foothold” before your immune system really ramped up against it, where the virus settled and multiplied, and also your own general health before your body started fighting it off.

So for example, if you caught a specific rhinovirus, your body caught it early, you might only experience a mild fever and a little tiredness. But if you caught that same virus later, you were already tired, it reproduced more in your lungs, you could develop more of a severe cough.

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spaceman60 t1_istx78q wrote

Don't forget dose as well. Were you 5ft from someone that is sick and they sneezed, or were you licking the subway handles?

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Chickentrap t1_isu8rol wrote

How do you get your daily salt intake without a little handle licking?

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heiferly t1_isujwz5 wrote

I'm a behaviorist who happens to have OCD. I did exposure therapy and I believe in its effectiveness... But I saw a TV show where an OCD therapist wanted her patient to touch a port-a-potty seat and lick her hand after. I don't know if the patient did it, bc it went against the medical ethics courses I took and I didn't watch the rest of the show. I can't believe a provider would think that's acceptable.

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Chickentrap t1_isuqlze wrote

I didn't realise exposure was effective in adults. I always assumed it to be mostly beneficial to children to develop a robust immune system.

And that's ridiculous, but was probably dramatised for tv purposes. I don't think any credible therapist would sanction that method.

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murgatroid1 t1_isut2l6 wrote

Exposure Therapy is a psychological treatment for anxiety disorders and isn't the same as deliberate exposure to pathogens in order to trigger an immune response, like you're talking about with children. And *that* sort of exposure does work with adults to some extent (like in vaccines), but it happens more in childhood because that's when everything is new to the immunue system.

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regular_modern_girl t1_isvq55f wrote

Yeah it seems that a number of people thought it would be a good idea to do that sort of “exposure therapy” with covid early in the pandemic, and it…generally didn’t work out so well for a lot of them.

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heiferly t1_isuxlab wrote

What murgatroid said. It's a behavioral-based psychological treatment, related to cognitive behavioral therapy, applied behavior analysis, etc. It's used to treat OCD or specific phobias (which I think they changed in the latest DSM but I'm old and out of school and that's not my field of practice and I'm gross with covid fever so no googling, sorry).

Basically you get exposed to things that cause you mild anxiety and slowly increase until you acclimatize to your biggest anxieties; in recent years research has shown pairing this with beta blockers can be highly effective and faster.

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SuurAlaOrolo t1_isvgiwv wrote

May I ask: I have a phobia of flying in an airplane that developed in my 20s. (Previously I flew dozens of times; now I haven’t flown since 2012.) I saw a psychologist who recommended exposure therapy, and I’ve heard about its effectiveness, but I simply can’t fathom how it works for flying. I tried it per my psychologist’s suggestion: looked at magazines with pictures of cabin seating, watched YouTube videos of turbulent flights, went to the airport and looked at flights taking off. It felt silly. I have no anxiety response to these things—they aren’t dangerous. Could you please explain how it is supposed to work?

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heiferly t1_iswck9o wrote

Technically I can't give a professional opinion over the internet, but given a hypothetical situation presented as you've described above, my knee-jerk reaction would be that for whatever reason, the practitioner planned and executed the treatment incorrectly. The planning aspect in particular is closely tied to the same theories and techniques I learned in graduate applied behavior analysis courses; laypeople commonly hold misconceptions about the jargon of my field but a psychologist should definitely be familiar with the concepts and their application.

I'm sorry you had such a poor experience. I'm terminally ill, immunocompromised, and currently ill with my third acute bout of covid (plus long covid since the 2nd bout) so I intend to return and answer here more but for now rest.

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slacker346 t1_isuz5tl wrote

I remember once sitting behind a mother and her toddler on the light rail train, and she was completely, blissfully unaware of that kid was doing. She thought he was looking out the window. Maybe he was, but he seemed most focused on licking every part of that window. Ewwwwww....

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Revolvyerom t1_isukvi0 wrote

> licking the subway handles

Wait, we're not supposed to do that?

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[deleted] OP t1_isuaevi wrote

[removed]

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ontopofyourmom t1_isune10 wrote

Yep. When I got Covid the active infection was noticeably spreading through my throat and sinuses rapidly (like over the course of half an hour). My immune system beat off the major infection before it got into my lungs and I just wound up with a month of "long" symptoms.

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Emu1981 t1_isuv4u0 wrote

>When I got Covid the active infection was noticeably spreading through my throat and sinuses rapidly (like over the course of half an hour). My immune system beat off the major infection before it got into my lungs and I just wound up with a month of "long" symptoms.

It depends on the variant that you caught. Some target the lower respiratory tract more while others target the upper respiratory tract more. One of the reasons why the early Omicron variants were not as dangerous as the Delta variant was that they targeted the upper respiratory tract more which meant that you were far less likely to end up with viral pneumonia or other issues with your lungs.

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VoilaVoilaWashington t1_isus8hm wrote

Basically, the common cold is any mild response to a respiratory infection. There isn't anything about those 4 families of viruses that unite them, unlike "the flu" which is always an influenza virus.

In that regard, SARS-CoV-2 ("covid") is basically just a "common cold" on steroids, which ended up being taken seriously and the variants are being tracked. Outside the effect it has on people, it's not all that unique.

Same as those super-flus. It's all just influenza, just some hit humans way harder than others.

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regular_modern_girl t1_isuw941 wrote

This is why omicron was able to so easily end up with some genetics from a milder coronavirus that regularly circulates as the “common cold”, because they’re pretty much the same thing, SARS-CoV-19 is essentially just a novel cold virus that humans lacked pre-existing immunity to, and thus it was able to cause far more harm to the body than it normally would’ve. Eventually, the descendants of this wave of Covid will probably become perceived as little more than a somewhat-bad colds as we continue to adapt to its presence (and to some extent, as it continues to adapt to us, as in general it’s actually more advantageous for viruses to keep their hosts alive while still being as virulent as possible, rather than killing them. Viruses in general don’t actually benefit evolutionarily from killing their hosts).

iirc, there are H1N1 influenza strains directly descended from the 1918 pandemic virus that continue to crop up as seasonal flus, and only occasionally does another one pop up from that lineage that causes serious enough illness to be especially noteworthy (“swine flu” back in the early 2010s was actually an example of this if I recall).

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TuckerMouse t1_ist0x5s wrote

Usually. Or a different thing entirely and think it is a cold because a cold shared symptoms with basically everything. Or they have a weakened immune system and catch the same thing again. But usually a different variant.

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Live-Parsley-3574 t1_ist21d6 wrote

Yeah, the virus that makes u get a cold (usually) is called rhinovirus which has a high mutation rate (This makes It unrecognizable to the human organism despite of being infected by this virus before). So people can get infected from more than one variant at different times despite of having recovered from the first cold.

(Sorry if i didnt express myself well, english is not my first language)

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Asterose t1_isvq23m wrote

One correction, there are hundreds of rhinoviruses, not just one! Some other virus families also cause the symptoms that we call "the common cold," but AFAIK rhinoviruses are the biggest group.

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TexasTornadoTime t1_ist4hno wrote

Why did you specify those regions as getting it more than once? It’s not a regionally driven phenomenon

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ottpro t1_ist50jd wrote

My familiarity with them, the ppl and their winter season. I don't actually know if... say Texans or Morrocans get colds or seasonally

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thelonetiel t1_istm2uj wrote

Can confirm, other population centers also have a variety of viruses.

This feels like a continuation of the misconception that "being out in the cold makes you sick" - when in reality the source of a cold is just a virus.

There are some factors that drive up disease rates in winter or colder climates - more time indoors with less ventilation makes spreading airborne viruses easier, among others - but warm climates still have the flu and the common cold viruses floating around

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Emu1981 t1_isuvmpt wrote

The ability for viral particles to survive in the air also is dependent on the temperature and humidity. Not to mention that being cold reduces the efficiency of your immune system - the reason why you get a fever when you have a infection is that your immune system works best at higher than average body temperatures and the higher temperatures tends to impair the ability of the infection to replicate and spread.

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regular_modern_girl t1_isvpce5 wrote

yeah also summer colds are a thing. Also, even in many areas with hot climates, the winter tends to be cooler and rainy (unless you’re right in the middle of the tropics where seasons don’t really work the same way), which means that people still end up spending more time indoors (especially since even 15 °C can feel cold to someone from a warm climate). It’s really just people packing together in less ventilated spaces which allows viruses to spread more (although with influenza I have also heard that the virus can’t remain viable outside as long in hot weather, and iirc this is even somewhat true of covid, but most transmission happens at fairly close range, anyway).

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the_ringmasta t1_isu7l6u wrote

Not necessarily.

I have a semi-uncommon immune disorder that prevents me from developing lasting immunities, so I can catch the same thing multiple times. Also, vaccines are a mixed bag for efficacy in my case.

Most people, though, work like you're describing.

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National_Suit5438 t1_isuv41r wrote

Can I ask which autoimmune disorder that is? I feel like I must have it too. After having COVID twice in a row, and then such again a few weeks later, after a lifetime of being sick too often, I’m seeking answers.

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NatAttack3000 t1_isv57mi wrote

There are many different immune disorders, it's very unlikely you have the same thing as this person

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the_ringmasta t1_isv65l0 wrote

I have IgA deficiency, which is about 1:150 in the US, but only about half of people with the disorder have the vaccine failures.

It's usually mostly harmless as long as you don't get blood transfusions or live near ragweed.

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AotearoaChur t1_isviwn4 wrote

Yes. But only in those places. Us people that have winter elsewhere are immune for life. And our boobs and testicles glow orange!

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