FOLKLORE
If you get wet, sit in a draft or forget to wear a hat, you’ll catch a cold.
To protect yourself from getting and spreading a cold, wash your hands repeatedly.
If you keep your child home from school, you can keep them from getting a cold.
FACTS
We do not catch a cold by getting wet and chilly. All colds are caused by a respiratory virus, pure and simple. Drafts and breezes may give you a chill which may make your nose runny, but they cannot give you a cold unless a virus is already present. Only a respiratory virus can cause a cold.
What is a respiratory virus?
Respiratory viruses infect only parts of your body that touch air – except your skin. Those parts include:
Eyes
Nose
Sinus
Middle Ear space
Throat
Voice Box
Airways (trachea)
Lungs
What is a virus?
A virus is a peculiar form of life that is a travelling combination of DNA and a coat of protein. The protein gets a virus into a cell. Once inside, the DNA forces that cell to stop doing what it is supposed to and start creating vast numbers of the virus.
This process pops the cell, kills it and releases zillions of new viruses, ready to repeat the cycle.
An interesting aspect of viruses is that its surrounding protein is only capable of entering one particular type of cell. Thus, the cold virus can only enter that list of body parts. And only in humans. Your dog, for example, cannot catch a cold from you. And vice versa.
The only purpose of a virus is to reproduce. When a cold virus does, it kills the host cell and distributes many new copies of the virus whose only job is to enter other cells and repeat the process.
How do viruses spread?
It turns out that cold viruses spread quite well, quite easily and have been doing so for as long as there have been humans. In fact, we really are not sure precisely how they do it. We know they spread in the air and by touch. We know they can spread across cities, states, nations and even continents very rapidly. This is why when one person you know has a cold, it isn’t long before many people you know have one. Maybe even you.
In addition to spreading rapidly, cold viruses (as well as flu viruses) can be sprayed around by the person with the cold for an average of three weeks.
What happens when you have a cold?
When you have a cold, you cough, sneeze, blow your noise, get a sore throat, have runny eyes, cough and so on. These symptoms are the result of the virus popping the cells they infect. This killing of the cells in your throat, for example, results in an area whose protective lining has in essence been burned off. Like any burn, the area is in pain and it weeps a thin fluid. As the lining heals, the healing tissue produces a more thick secretion, often yellow or green. A person will only feel well again when the lining has completely healed itself with new, healthy cells that have replaced those burned off by the attack of the virus.
The key danger to watch for with any viral infection are signs that the illness has shifted from being minor to being serious. These signs include:
Struggling to breathe
Blue lips and nail beds
Stiff neck
Severe pain
Altered consciousness – the ability to “be yourself,” even tired self
A sense that something is terribly wrong
Summary
Colds are caused by a respiratory virus that virtually cannot be stopped. Once you are infected, the virus will create more and more viruses until your body eventually kills them. Once infected, the cells die off like a burn. That process creates fluids we associate with coughing, blowing our nose and runny eyes.
The best thing to do for a cold is rest, drink fluids and take pain relievers if aches and pains are causing discomfort.
There is no cure for the common cold, except time.
