Why do I feel ill whenever I get the common cold?

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I pick up about 4 colds a year (more than I used to), and when I do get one I always feel more ill than what I should be with just a common cold. I get flu-like symptoms with it, like weakness, aching joints and dizziness. I don't know if it's because I have problems with my sinuses so a cold causes them to become inflamed and infected, but to others I just look like a wimp who stays off work because of a cold, and that I should "man up". But I don't play it on, I really feel weak and too Ill to do anything. The last time I had a cold I fell over a couple of times, due to weakness.
It's not like I'm unhealthy either, my diet is good, I eat plenty of fruit, vegetables and chicken and nuts and things like that, and I get plenty of exercise and fresh air too, and I don't smoke or drink at all. When I get a cold I have plenty to drink (juice or water) and I even eat too, as I don't like having an empty stomach with a cold.

But I get so ill with a cold, it makes me feel like I'm a frail old lady of 80. When I was younger colds never affected me this bad. What is going on?

If you are having "flu-like symptoms" then it may actually be the Flu. It is possible to catch the Flu virus soon after catching the Cold virus.

Consult your health-care provider.

Do you bite your fingernails by any chance?

Yeah; you should be like an American. We don't believe in such Commie nonsense like Socialized medicine, and 80% of us face unemployment, poverty and homelessness if we were to call in sick, and 1/3 of us; 44 million people, have no access to health care at all, so we come to work contagious and spread our viruses far and wide to our co-workers and customers, because we cannot afford not to. This is particularly true of slave-wage, no-benefits food service workers. "Hi; I'm Typhoid Mary. *sniff* Would you like fries with that?"


No; that's not normal for a simple cold. Get thee to your GP.

I hope that you feel better soon.

Yes I do, but I've been doing it since I was 1. I read somewhere that biting your nails for years gets your immune system used to most germs (so does picking your nose, which is gross). I hardly ever get stomach bugs, although I had one last Christmas for the first time since I was a small child.

I would go into work with a headache or a sore throat, but when I have inflamed sinuses and aching bones, I feel so weak and too unwell. Other people seem to just have sniffs, coughs and sneezes when they have a common cold, but I get swollen cheeks and am so blocked I cannot talk, even if I use sinus spray. Usually sinus meds aren't so effective when I have a cold. That is why I hate colds, they take over my body like some sort of plague. The only thing I'm lucky with is my chest; I only get a cough for about a week and then it's gone.



Thanks but I don't have a cold at the moment. My boyfriend is showing the signs of a cold and I just know I will catch it off him because I always catch people's colds. So it's on my mind at the moment. I'm annoyed because I've got plans this Saturday, and I don't want to be struck down with a cold.

Assuming you don't wash your hands before you bite your nails, that is why you are getting 4 colds a year. I used to get sick a lot more when I bit my nails. Those that say that biting your nails or eating your boogers is healthy are wrong as they are essentially saying that ALL bacteria and viruses are good for you as nobody washes their hands before they bite their nails. Biting your nails also destroys your teeth, look in the mirror at your teeth, at the side of your mouth that you usually bite your nails with and likely your teeth will have been worn away and damaged. That was all it took for me to stop biting my nails, looking at how I destroyed my teeth from the decades of biting my nails.

Have you ever had blood tests to check your immunoglobulin levels? I'm like you, I got colds several times throughout the year and they seem a lot worse for me than say my brothers or parents, and it takes me weeks/months to fully get over the cold. I was diagnosed with IgA deficiency as a child, essentially my body has very low/non-existent levels of immunoglobulin A, and this type of immunoglobulin is found in the mucous membranes and its primary function is to help prevent and fight against viruses/bacteria which cause respiratory conditions, such as colds, flu's, sinusitis and bronchitis, as well as against gastroenteritis and similar infections which cause the sick bug. It may be worth checking out, if it isn't something you've been checked for before. It's not usually a serious condition (in fact, most people who have it have no symptoms), but it's worth finding out if you do have it, because there is a possibility of going into anaphylactic shock if you require a blood transfusion and are given blood which contains IgA.

Hey, I'm eating right now as I read about people eating their own boogers!

I never heard that eating your own boogers is healthy. Ugh, that's all the booger eating crowd needs: justification to back up their gross habit. I've never done such a thing. There was a kid that sat in the next row from me in grade school that would pick his nose during reading hour, roll the booger in his fingers and then eat it. I would nearly vomit.

In regard to the common cold and other types of communicable viruses, I've often fantasized that if humans or family units avoided all physical contact and kept far enough away from each other to avoid contracting an airborne illness for a period of a week or two, think of how many such diseases, like the common cold, influenza, etc would be eradicated from the earth.

I do wash my hands a lot and I have a nail scrubber to clean underneath the nails. I have been biting my nails since I was a baby and I've only recently been catching more colds in the last 5 years or so. Before that, colds were very few and far between and sometimes I went 2 years or more without getting a cold or any other viruses.

People sometimes criticise people who take a day off work because of a cold. They accuse them of being "wimps". But not only that, I don't get sick pay at my work, but with a cold I really cannot function. I worry people think I'm letting it on but I am not. If my colds just consisted of a sore throat, blocked nose and a cough, I would be more functioning. But because I seem to get flu-like symptoms as well, it makes me want to stay indoors and do nothing.

People have had colds at work all week, and although I've been working there all week, I haven't caught anything, but I'm still expecting to. Usually dry, itchy ears is the first symptom I get when I'm getting a cold, and my ears keep feeling dry on and off. I just hope my immune system gets off it's ass and prevents the cold.

I do sometimes worry that I have cancer somewhere.

You could try taking vitamin C supplements regularly. Me & my girlfriend both take them. Cass has a stress illness & gets sick pretty easily when she's been stressed out for a while. She finds she doesn't get sick quite as fast as she normally would being on the C. She also sometimes increases how much she takes if she feels like she's starting to get sick & that helps alittle too. We normally take half a gram of extended release 3x a day(one with each meal) but when Cass increases it she takes 4 a day but she finds she gets an upset stomach after a short time of the increase. She's prone to stomach problems thou including acid reflux & being stressed out makes her stomach problems worse. It's possible the average person could take 4 of that C a day & not have any stomach problems. I never take 4 & I have GERD so I'm a tad worried how 4 would affect me.

I used to get colds alot as a kid but I almost never get sick as an adult. I would get a couple colds every skewl year or at least one cold & the flue at some point but that suddenly stopped 1ce I graduated. I only got sick 1ce in the 38 months I was working & that was a sinus infection. I got that because was working around a lot of dust the day before & I had been in kind of a cold area for the rest of the week before. That was about the only time I had a sinus infection as an adult but I used to get them fairly easily when I was in skewl & they would develop into bronchitis if I didn't see the doc soon enough. The only other times I've gotten sick as a adult were cuz my girlfriend was & I got over them pretty fast. I got a high fever for a day or so & then I was fine 3 days latter. I think that may be due to the C but not sure.