OH, dah nose, dah nose

[dreamshark]

I felt pretty good all day yesterday, then The Nose kicked in and gave me a miserable night. Cautiously better today. If it doesn't move down to the chest, it will turn out to be one of those colds that is so trivial that I forget I ever had it. I probably should stay inside all day today, however. The chest cough is my Achilles heel.

Comments

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I've managed to stave off those chest coughs for quite a while now, between regular breathing meditations and, at the first signs of a cold, taking a half-dose of those Nyquil/Dayquil equivalents. It might be worthwhile to try at least the latter.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

So far, there's no sign of a chest cough. The danger for me is cold air. Weirdly enough, I am allergic to cold (or so I was told by an allergist who tested me years ago).

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'd never heard of being allergic to temperatures. Interesting.

At least you're a long-time Minnesota resident and familiar with all the little tricks for staying warm. :)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I admit, it's a weird concept. It only makes sense if you realize that "allergic" means that the body's autoimmune system overreacts to certain stimuli by overproducing histamines (which cause symptoms like runny nose, difficulty breathing, etc). In most cases, the stimulus is a substance, such as pollen or foods or bee venom. Apparently, if this doctor was correct, my system overresponds to cold temperatures. It's not particularly noticeable if I'm healthy, although I seem to blow my nose a lot more in the cold than most people do. But if I'm already sick, I'm susceptible to asthmatic reactions to irritants like cold and smoke, which can turn into full-blown asthma and sometimes from there into bronchitis.

My chest is feeling a little heavy right now, in fact. I think I'll take your advice, take a little Nyquil and go to bed early.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I'm sure getting plenty of rest, (and anything else that helps you de-stress) will help.

The rest of the cold

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Sharon, nobody else is reading this entry by now, but just for you, here's the rest of the story.

I wouldn't call it a bad cold, but it was very attenuated: every day a different symptom. Lasted a week. I never felt even tempted to stay home from work, but did leave a little early and was unusually tired by evening. It did end up with a cough that flirted with turning into a chest cough, but then faded away. I'm pretty much fine today. So the cold lasted exactly a week, Friday-Friday.