Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; common cold - delay in getting over during flare?

Hi,

I've come down with a terrible cold. It's been 14 days and I'm still not better. I've had 2 large flares during the past 14 days, and I have a feeling that the flares slowed down my getting over the cold. I think my immune system was distracted by the AS and could not concentrate fully on the cold. Has anyone else ever experienced something similar? If anything, I'm thinking at the very least the lack of rest during the flare would set my immune system behind.

Thanks,
Ginger

Hi Ginger:

Sorry no one has had any useful information on this. I don't have any either. I don't get sick very often at all. Once I had an MD explain to me that because I have an auto-immune disease my immune system is overactive. I guess I always wondered if that was why others around me can be sick but typically I don't get it. But I really have no clue.

Drink some hot tea and get some rest. If you weren't so far away, I'd make you some starch-free chicken soup!

~Shelli

Hi Ginger,

I seldom get colds due to eating healthy... but when I do did not know what to do at first since chicken noodle soup out and crackers (what my mother always gave me).

But I would take NyQuil and Dayquil that helped and made sure to get a lot of vitamin C (Drank orange juice without the pulp and ate grapefruit).

I know some react to orange juice brands.

Tim

Hi Ginger,
I have had an RA diagnosis since 2001 and colds are a big problem for me. When I was on Methotrexate I got about a cold a month and it took weeks to get over, probably becasue of the immune supression from the Metho. I am on Enbrel now and still take twice as long as everyone else to get over colds, but I don't get them as often. We are military and move every few years and when we do, the first year I catch all the local bugs. After a year or so, I have cycled through them and stop getting sick unless I travel or fly in a plane,(they are bug traps!) We are getting ready to move again next summer so I know I will spend another year with constant colds, yuck!
Bottom line is, try to avoid the bugs by constant use of hand sanitizer or good old soap and water and hopefully, once you have fully processed the bugs in your area, you will get sick less often.
Wendy

Hey there,
I am like one of the other people who said they often don't get sick when people around them do. When I am in a flare, I hardly get sick at all. Then, over the past few months, the flare that had lasted nearly two years subsided and I got 3 viruses in 5 weeks! I thought perhaps it was because when I had a flare the immune system was doing the overactive thing, and when it calmed down, perhaps my immune system wasn't working hard enough. I asked my GP about it, and of course he didn't know - it was an AS related question afterall, and they never seem to know the answers to those! oooh dear, I must be in a bitter frame of mind...
Take care, I hope you're feeling better now.
Katy