[Poll] Pathos

[thefourthvine]

In this house, we have been sick so often, for so long, that I have actually grown weary of writing the words "I am sick." We are personally responsible for a worldwide tissue shortage and have cornered the market on throat lozenges and self-pity.

But I notice I'm not alone. My friends list appears to be unusually unwell, too. (Not my fault, guys. You can't catch these viruses via the internets.) So. A poll. To entertain us all as we sneeze and reach for the antipyretics.

Poll #6121 Sick, sick, sick

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 471

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Are you sick right now?

View Answers

*couch* *hack* *wheeze*
156 (33.8%)

Why, no! The immune system gods have smiled upon me.
306 (66.2%)

Have you been sick at any time in 2011 so far?

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You should be asking me if there are days I haven't been sick in 2011.
52 (11.2%)

Yeah. A lot. I don't want to talk about it.
125 (26.8%)

I've had one minor illness this year.
160 (34.3%)

People in my household have been sick. Germ vectors, every one.
126 (27.0%)

No. And I will share my secrets in the comments.
99 (21.2%)

How do you treat a cold?

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Decongestants
277 (59.1%)

Neti pot
64 (13.6%)

Hot tea
343 (73.1%)

Lozenges
223 (47.5%)

Acupuncture or acupressure
13 (2.8%)

Menthol or eucalyptus goop
81 (17.3%)

Nasal spray
89 (19.0%)

Salt water gargling or snorting or whatever
101 (21.5%)

Steamy showers
264 (56.3%)

Vaporisers
42 (9.0%)

Vitamins
225 (48.0%)

Lots of fluids
402 (85.7%)

Chicken soup
186 (39.7%)

Ginger ale
112 (23.9%)

Ice cream
73 (15.6%)

Herbal soothers
39 (8.3%)

Alcohol
71 (15.1%)

Weeping
103 (22.0%)

Prolonged bouts of self-pity
302 (64.4%)

Something else I will tell you about in the comments
54 (11.5%)

Greatest enemy of the people?

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GERMS. Motherfucking GERMS.
194 (42.0%)

SNOW. Motherfucking SNOW.
104 (22.5%)

The sun. Its fierce eye burns us, precious.
89 (19.3%)

Penguins. Sneak attacking, death-dealing penguins of DOOM.
75 (16.2%)

We're going to name our house, like we're fancy British people. Pick a name!

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Snotsvilla
36 (8.0%)

Duncoughin
197 (44.0%)

Plague House
126 (28.1%)

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here
129 (28.8%)

I have a better idea. To the comments!
16 (3.6%)

Comments

[pocketmouse]

I've had a mild cough/stuffy nose thing on and off since December, but it finally went away! You know what did it? Staying up 30 hours, and working more than half of that.

[sevenall]

Although Dante is never out of style, I vote for "Quarantine".

Also, fresh ginger infusion with lemon, cayenne peppeer and honey can help. I've heard.

[hannah]

Heavily spiced foods always help me feel better when I'm congested. Also, waiting seems to do the trick.

[mecurtin]

Two things (in addition to ones you mentioned) are CRUCIAL to treating/preventing colds:

1. Spicy food of whatever kind you like.

2. Hot Honey, Lemon and Ginger:
- take a glass measuring cup (any size from 1-4c)
- pour in a layer of honey (local if possible) as thick as your finger is thick, from 0.5-1 cm.
- pour in a layer of bottled lemon juice of equal thickness
- pour in water to fill the measuring cup
- add 2 thin slices of fresh ginger for each cup of water
- microwave until hot
- stir

Drink a lot of this.

[jumpuphigh]

#2 is better if it includes rum or whisky.

[via_ostiense]

Have you been sick: I had strep throat once, so somewhere in between LOTS and ONE MINOR ILLNESS.

How I deal with colds: ignore it, mostly, and grouse about it and hope each night that when I wake up int the morning, it'll be gone.

[via_ostiense]

When I have a sore throat or a cold, I crave nothing but spicy food: spicy beef soup (yukgaejang), chicken vindaloo, shui zhu yu.

[jumpuphigh]

To prevent the lingering illness, I take a washcloth (or rag) and get it wet with rubbing alcohol. I then go throughout my house and wash off every thing that gets handled:
doorknobs
faucets
light switches
mouse
keyboard
phone
fridge handles
stove knobs
etc.

It works great for preventing me from reinfecting myself.

I also use colloidal silver at the first hint of anything and for about 2 days after whatever I had ended. (This is often an unpopular thing to say in public because there is a lot of misinformation out there about colloidal silver. However, I can't remember the last time I was sick from germs for more than a day and usually, it's less than 12 hours.)

ETA: I rarely do the first since things don't linger but if I am sick for a couple of times in a few weeks period I'll do it or if something last more than 24 hours.

[malnpudl]

The family beverage for this sort of thing is hot Dr. Pepper with lemon. Yeah, I know, sounds weird. Good, though, and it coats a sore throat nicely. The drinkers in the family have been known to add rum or Triple Sec; they swear by it. But that may be just the alcohol talking. *g*

My personal recipe for anything clogging up the head is Chinese takeout, specifically hot & sour soup, which clears the congestion, and potstickers, which go down easily without irritating a sore throat and provide easily digestible sustenance with an adequate hit of protein, something I don't usually crave when ill.

I wish you all wellness. Soonest.

[ldthomps]

Oh, man - I practically remember my cold fondly (though not when I cough) since getting the PTSD-inducing GI norovirus. OMG, never leave me toilet and bucket! Even if I kind of never want to see either of you ever again!

But still, no more colds! We are done with colds! C'mon Vitamin D and warm weather, work your magic! We remember happy sinuses, they will come again!

[20thcenturyvole]

I get sick maybe twice a year, and if I have energy to expend, I will expend it cooking. Chocolate chilli, Thai curries - anything that'll drain my sinuses, you know? Also, I gargle alka-seltzer, because I have found it to be, by a mile, the most effective way of treating a sore throat. That and a great deal of tea and orange juice is how I get through colds.

[pocketmouse]

Sickness = time to make chili. Where chili = 2 bell peppers, 3 jalapenos, and 6 habaneros. To start.

[eli]

I was good until you made me choose between GERMS and SNOW.

Ech, if I never cough again in my entire life, it will be too soon.

[gabolange]

Oh, God, the snow. Make it stop.

Feel better soon!

[msilverstar]

Yet another bad thing about depression is that it's hard to tell if I'm actually sick or just feeling normally crummy. Not many respiratory or gasto illnesses this year in our household, we dodged the bullet.

[shinealightonme]

Dayquil, man. That shit tastes nasty, but it works. (And if you drink it enough, you don't mind the taste so much - at least it's over quickly, vs. cough drops, which I can't even do at all. I suck on hard candies a bit if my throat's feeling dry, though.)

I no longer treat illnesses with alcohol. I did that once, and it turned a sniffle into a raging fever. Not to mention, there were some questionable decisions made that night...

[reginagiraffe]

I do this same thing (except for the ginger)!

It's quicker to make and is even more soothing than tea, I think.

[busaikko]

Snow? I went to the grocery store yesterday in sandals with no socks and enjoyed the blooming flowers. Ah, global warming, so nice in February, so hellish in August.

I've had a low-grade lingering cold that just seems to get worse every time I work on my final exams and my proofreading. I've been trying to treat it with sleep and liquids and vitamins and big pots of vegetable soup.

[vito_excalibur]

I decline to answer on the grounds that this is the sort of hubris that gets one struck down by Ecchhechecechhh, Goddess of Effluvia.

[reginagiraffe]

Technically, my cold was the last week of 2010, but I still had a bit of snuffliness after Jan 1st so I'm going to count it.

[vass]

This is often an unpopular thing to say in public because there is a lot of misinformation out there about colloidal silver.

You mean like the FDA's position on colloidal silver?

[resonant]

I feel your pain. Except no, because my kid's older and can entertain herself as long as someone in the house is well enough to drive her to the library. I feel a fraction of your pain.

For the last five or six years, I've begun getting a pre-cold warning: a week or so of great unexplained fatigue, plus sometimes a little tingly proto-cold sore in the corner of my mouth. (Maybe I've always had this and am just now noticing? Learning from experience = not so much my strong suit, apparently.)

And I've noticed that if, when I first feel those symptoms, I go against all instinct and just camp out at the gym, doing yoga or the elliptical machine or any other sustained non-water exercise, sometimes I can head off the cold that way. (I tend to need a nap afterwards, of course.)

Swimming doesn't work, unfortunately.

My theory: exercise raises my body temperature a little bit, like a small controlled fever, and this kills viruses just like the real thing.

[jumpuphigh]

I'm not going to get into this with anyone on this thread.

[vass]

I coughed so hard I broke a rib.

[yasaman]

I've only had a vaguely oogy feeling/pressure in my sinuses so far this year, but a couple of nights of good sleep and lots of vitamin C seems to have done the trick in keeping it from developing into much more.

In my experience, sleeping for about twelve hours and drinking a lot of peppermint tea with honey/lemon ginger tea with honey wards off an incipient cold. If I actually do get a cold though, I treat with decongestants, self-pity, and lots of sleep and fluids. I generally give myself at least one day of staying in, in the hopes that a full day of rest will keep any illness from lingering for longer than a week.