Will my cold kick the flu's butt?
May 1, 2009 6:26 PM   Subscribe

If you had a cold, would that make you more or less susceptible to catching a flu (perchance the H1N1, for example)

So you have a cold, clearly not a flu, and so maybe not thinking about your own personal hygiene, because, hey, you're already sick.

You unknowingly also get the flu a few days into the cold - your immune response is in full swing.

Would it just wreck you completely? Or, because your immune system is already in gear, and you are staying hydrated, getting rest, eating lots of Vitamin C or whatever else helps, would the flu actually have less of a chance of going full force?

Basically, can you have a cold plus a flu at the same time, will one dominate while the other one is dealt a swift, destructive blow, or will you simply suffer immeasurably?

Or, will one virus attack the other in a struggle for dominance, and symptoms will follow whichever one wins?
posted by anniek to Health & Fitness (8 answers total)
 
If you have a cold, you're likely to be staying home, and that reduces your chance of being exposed to other diseases, and thus of catching them.

But you could get the same benefit by staying home even if you were well.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:10 PM on May 1, 2009


It has been speculated that the people who died in Mexico died because they were sick with something else at the same time.

It has also been speculated that many people in 1918 had latent tuberculosis, and that's part of the reason it was so devastating.
posted by sbutler at 7:56 PM on May 1, 2009


Its also thought most of the deaths from the 1918 flu pandemic were because of a simultaneous outbreak of TB or a very similar disease at the time. Most patients who died likely had both illnesses. It actually had a very similar progression to those deaths which have been reported in the current outbreak of H1N1: high fever, strong symptoms, pneumonia, death. Which leads me (a total layman in the field of immunology and what not) to conclude there may be a similar event occurring here, as that flu's don't often produce pneumonia on their own in someone who is young and reasonably healthy otherwise (the highest infection and death rate bracket for BOTH the 1918 and H1N1 currently). This is not to say that the flu can't cause pneumonia - it can, very much so, and viral pneumonia is NOTHING to joke with.
posted by strixus at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2009


Or what sbutler said, in must simpler terms than I did.
posted by strixus at 7:58 PM on May 1, 2009


Your innate immune system will be in high gear if you have a cold, which may make you a bit less likely to come down with a flu, though I don't know that anyone has worked this out statistically.

Chocolate Pickle's observation is probably the stronger factor anyway, so collecting enough evidence one way or the other would take damn near forever.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:01 PM on May 1, 2009


Well, all that mucus probably reduces the chances of the flu virus penetrating an epithelial cell. It certainly works against your mucous membranes getting dried out, as they do on a plane, which is though to make you more suceptable to a variety of viruses.
posted by Good Brain at 9:18 PM on May 1, 2009


It has also been speculated that many people in 1918 had latent tuberculosis, and that's part of the reason it was so devastating.

1/3 of people today have TB (though probably less in the states, that's a global number).

Having a low-level infection has been shown to "prime" the immune system and in some cases make certain kinds of secondary infections less likely. However (this is just an educated guess) I don't think that a cold will help prevent the flu. If you are actively sick with a cold, your body's resources are being exhausted, not primed. This is why people get pneumonia after the flu - it's a second infection that the body can't handle because immune cells in the lungs have been literally obliterated.

On another note, one of the theories about the 1918 flu is the "cytokine storm" hypothesis, in which young, healthy people were greatly afflicted because their robust immune systems were triggered into overdrive by the virus. So if that's the case, having a weakened immune system might actually help you.
posted by fermezporte at 5:39 AM on May 2, 2009 [1 favorite]


Best answer: AnecdoteFilter: In my experience, it's rare that someone gets a cold and flu at the same time. It's paradoxical, your body is weakened, so you should be more vulnerable, but your immune system is ramped up.
posted by theora55 at 7:13 AM on May 2, 2009


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