Thanks for all the good wishes, folks. Just a quick update here-
The vacant tooth area is progressing- though I spent a good week waiting for it to heal up and stop hurting - without antibiotics, on the dentist's say so. It wasn't really getting better.
So, I started doing a little irregular self treatment with leftover antibiotics (NOT something I recommend; but these are fresh). And it's doing much better now.
But. Of course. Now we've all been hit by that scourge of humanity- the common cold. Almost certainly transmitted via infectious agents in Smidgen's preschool.
And it's a doozy. I don't remember dribbling and sneezing this much, in spite of all the over-the-counter remedies; in decades.
Cripes. A little too close to brain-dead for good blogging just now.
Can't even nap, really. Too much dribbling and exploding.
Never mind the basic theology behind "Why did God allow Hiroshima?" I want to know why any god would allow the common cold.
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I remember during my first year teaching I was sick all the time. By Thanksgiving, I had strep, an ear infection, and pink eye in both eyes. Finally, my teacher immunity built up and I haven't had a cold (knock on wood) in a long while. I have, however, had two stomach bugs since December. I guess I just can't fight those off.
It's a stomach bug here - don't know where that came from but probably school. Fortunately its a very mild one this time. Good luck with that cold. Its coming into winter here soon so I expect colds will be the next thing.
viv in nz
Leftover antibiotics? There should be no such thing. When prescribed they should be taken until finished. Only taking part of the dose because you feel better is what has caused super bugs and making MRSA one of the most feared thing about going to a hospital.
Carol-Leah - absolutely true. I yell at a couple lackadaisical friends all the time about this. Finish your prescription out.
These leftovers are from Spice's recent bout with sinusitis- where they wound up trying like 5 different antibiotics- none of which really worked. So we wound up with a couple bottles where she'd taken it for 4 days- was getting worse- and they shifted medication on her, leaving us with 6 days of unused pills.
Updating the immune system is always such a bother. When the kid was in grade school we had the displeasure of updating systems each fall and again in the winter for several years. Not something I miss. We eventually managed to miss most of them with judicious hand washing but some always seemed to sneak through, on occasion. She is now in college and we caught her cold when she visited last week. Sigh.
We found that over the counter cold remedies are pointless except for enriching drug companies. Honey/lemon tea, licorice/slippery elm bark tea for head colds, or if it gets into a cough a thyme/eucalyptus/basil/mullein tea seems to slow dow the cough for a few hours. Sleep, liquids, naps, low effort work seems to help it get past more rapidly. Colds are the perfect parasite.
Recommend: sleeping face down with some setup to leave a space below your face, so your nose can drip all night. Put a towel under you to catch it. Hanging off the bed with forehead on a pillow on a chair, or adding a layer to the bed except at the head, or the like.
Keeps all the guck from going down into your lungs; greatly reduces the massive coughing that follows the cold, and also keeps a lot of stuff from drying up inside your nose.
That plus ample saline spray can make most of the flushing action actually flush out instead of down and in.
> six days
for what body weight?
Hope you admit this to your MD and extend or increase if appropriate.
You know this.
why did G-d create the common cold? to defeat the martians, of course.
hope the lil buggies move out of your home soon. remember, when it comes to defeating the invisible foe; soap and water are your friends!
Hmm... It's abit late now, sounds like you are all better, but a bit of clove powder rubbed on the gums will numb the pain and also act as a potent anti-bacterial.
Hope all is better with you and yours soon!
Gosh, you folks have had a tough winter. All my sympathies. We've actually been unusually lucky, which presumably means we'll all be hit with something horrible soon, since I've now jinxed it.
Fingers crossed for a quick recovery and many fewer explosions.
Sharon
I've been successully fighting off colds for months, as everyone around me was laid low. A virus finally got to me three days ago.
I used to get really sick with colds, would invariably end up with a secondary bacterial infection in the sinuses, be sick for 2 weeks or more. Irrigation of the sinuses with a neti pot seems to have solved the secondary infection problem -- my colds now tend to last only a few days, and I never get the snot running like a faucet.
Yesterday, my brother told me that a virologist friend of his claims to have avoided catching colds for over 20 years in the following way: at the first sign of symptoms (usually a scratchy throat) he wears a surgical mask to bed. That's it. He says that the mask causes a 2 - 3 degree F increase in the temperature in the upper respiratory tract. Since the rhino virus has a very narrow temperature range in which it can thrive and replicate, the small increase in temperature prevents replication; thus, the cold never develops. It's certainly worth a try -- I'll be sure to do it next time I feel a cold coming on.
For now, I'm just doing all the usual things one does - echinacea root and aspirin for the pain, neti pot, lime juice, brandy, rest, etc. I started feeling a lot better this afternoon. Hope you feel better soon!
lots of good ideas here, folks. I'm intrigued by Barb's idea on wearing the surgical mask to bump temp up.
Hank - yes, Mommy. :-)
Sharon- thanks. yeah, it does seem a bit excessive, to me.
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