Christmas cold

It arrived suddenly on Sunday - a torrent of cold. It's my second bad cold in two years so maybe my immune system's getting better!

I've had the pleasure of drinking redbush tea all week to give the immune system a kick. It's not obviously worked. The cold has simply gone through the phases of a bad cold - a nose that doesn't stop running, a lost voice and attempts to get a cough going. Tonight it seems to be trying to get a cough and a fever going.

The tea must have been well past it's sell-by date. I soon finished the half-a-dozen sachets in the box and went out to get another one.

So has the redbush tea made things better or worse? It could have aggravated the runny nose and sore throat for all I know, like a combined cold and hay fever.

If you remember my theory from last autumn, the allergic reactions seem to give a broad response which see off most viral attacks early. If the virus gets past this, it may cause problems. You could call it a salicylate-resistant virus. Because the fine-tuned parts of the immune system don't have to deal with many viruses, they are less prepared.

I haven't helped myself by not getting enough sleep. Pre-Christmas stress. I've no plans to drink wine to see it off - as I have in the past. That's a medicine with side-effects and usually leaves me with stiff joints for weeks.

RAS

Viruses, teeth and everything

It started with a bit of beef stuck in my back teeth. When problems persisted, more food got stuck and a dull ache spread from the tooth I just assumed I'd pushed my fragile dental system too far.

Then there was a slight ache in the chest and a thickness in the throat. Looking back I've been through this many times recently - yet it's always hard to be sure what's happening. They say a dental infection can spread, causing pneumonia and heart disease (I'm not a hypochondriac - just reporting what I've picked up).

I used plenty of salt water and dental floss to fight what I thought was a dental infection - while the virus slowly climbed my throat and throttled the tooth

By the beginning of this week I was back where I was less than two months ago. Overwhelmed by a virus. On Sunday I stayed in bed. On Monday night I barely slept for a hacking cough.

The thing is: once you know it's a virus you know what to do. On Tuesday I was due to attend a function - so I attended and indulged myself. Wine, mushroom starter, everything - well, everything except the beef.

Several posters recently have mentioned wine being high in salicylates and I keep saying what I always say: it's a great way to kick-start the immune system. I've still got a bit of virus - but not much. I've suffered no ill-effects from my indulgence. My tooth is barely sore - just a little bit, almost certainly from the effects of too much flossing. And as well as getting an immune system shot, my body's probably had a chance to pick up nutrients it may be deprived of routinely.

Only problem now is that it's going to be tougher to pick up a virus on December 24th - in time to make Christmas dinner palatable.

RAS

Granny's remedies

By yesterday morning one eye was bloodshot and had been for two days without any sign of healing. The other was aching and I was losing hearing in the left ear. It was definitely the worst cold I've had since I've had this problem and, worse, it was persisting.

Out of necessity comes invention - or rather reinvention. I remembered getting sinusitis and bad colds as a child. I also know well the symptoms of the other kind of sinusitis, call it inflammatory sinusitis if you like as I'm probably not meant to call it allergic sinusitis. Maybe non-allergic sinusitis to rhyme with non-allergic rhinusitis.

Anyway this was not non-allergic sinusitis, it was viral sinusitis. And the old remedy involves getting plenty of steam and sticking your face in it. This is what I did. It flushes the virus out of the cavities of the face. I combined this with some new tricks - like swallowing to open the  eustachian tubes and flush anything down from the ears. And, as my throat was quite lumpy, I put some salt in some hot water and gargled it.

Within a few hours I was cured. The blood went from the eye as did the aching. I haven't had a chance to test the hearing. At best all that remains is a mild cold.

So what on earth happened? My hyperactive immune system is meant to see off colds - and in case of doubt I thought to get it going with redbush tea and even a glass of wine. My theory is this and I'm no immunologist. The immune system works in several waves - the first is the blunt response to stave off infection. That's what you get when there's a salicylate reaction. Later on the immune system fine tunes itself to deal with particular viruses.

Now for the last five years I've barely had a cold or flu because it's been seen off at the outset. So there's been no fine-tuning against new viruses. The effect is similar to Native Americans or Martians being exposed to the European common cold. I'd lost my immune protection.

So once the virus got through I was vulnerable - and ended up spending two days and many more hours in bed together with a nasty bout of sinusitis.

RAS

PS In researching this I went back to several of the Wikipedia sources to make sure I'm not talking utter nonsense. Taken together they are very good. The article on salicylate sensitivity is good but you need to follow the link to Montelukast and on to leukotrienes, the arichidonic cascade etc to get the full story. The front-line immune cells are called neutrophils and they appear to be guided by leukotrienes, which also cause inflammation and hence asthma and other symptoms of allergy.

A cold

I have gone down with a stinking, stonking, horrendous, wonderful cold - probably the worst cold I've had in five years.

For the last 24 hours I've been indulging in redbush tea. I ate a cream muffin with strawberry jam. I tried red grapes. My skin is fine, my throat is not but that is probably the cold virus.

I was going to indulge in wine tonight - but it is a real cold and is playing havoc with my tastebuds and appetite. So I haven't really enjoyed the redbush tea (it is rather old and may just be stale). All being well, thanks to a hyperactivated immune system it should be gone tomorrow.

RAS

A stinking cold!

I have a stinking cold! It really is a cold, I am convinced and not hay-fever.

It came on overnight and last night I wasn't sure. But this morning I checked and The Splodge was nearly invisible. And tonight it felt as if I was getting the shivers. So I had the pleasure of having redbush tea for breakfast and another cup tonight. Both cups made me a feel a lot better

A funny week. I've switched back to buying cheap, dark chocolate. In fact we came back with eight bars of it from the supermarket - that's a lot. The advantage is that I eat less of it than of dairy milk - which is far too addictive and fattening.

However my teeth and mouth have not been happy. Soreness around the jaw and an ulcer in the mouth. My dentist would say it's a return of gum disease and I did swill my mouth with salt water a couple of times, especially when my left wisdom tooth seemed to get sore. Is that the dark chocolate or the sugar in the dark chocolate? Maybe both.

I'm a little worried my immune system seems to be swinging from one extreme to another - from over-reacting to succumbing fast to a cold virus.

RAS

Trying to catch a cold

I met somebody with a cold today so I stood close to see if I could catch the virus. This is because when I had cold and flu bugs during the winter my tolerance of the allergy was improved massively - and I was able to drink wine, redbush tea and "try" stuff etc.

RAS

Better!

I'm fairly confident I've shaken the virus off now. I know because I started itching all over yesterday and all the little red spots have appeared on my skin. In other words I overdosed on high salicylate food - probably because I've been indulging in white wine again over the weekend following two days of drinking redbush tea.

As other people have tended to linger for a couple of weeks and develop hacking coughs this suggests that either a) it was not a very dangerous virus at all or
b) that I've shaken it off in record time and that there continues to be a plus side to having a hyperactive immune system.

RAS

Kill or cure?

 I drank a pint of redbush tea yesterday. It is wonderful stuff. It lifts the mood, clears the head and most importantly kick starts the immune system. As it contains some salicylate - we don't know how much - I cannot normally drink it. But because of the salicylate it seems to be just the thing when I'm fighting a virus.

The immediate impact is alarming when you have a sore throat and hoarse voice. I start coughing (thankfully this virus has not caused much coughing). But I did not choke and after a while started to feel better.

By the end of the day there was a slight rash reappearing on my body but it had gone by the morning.

Last night I took a paracetamol before going to bed and slept for about ten hours. No camomile tea.

RAS