The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Previously I would maybe catch 0-2 colds a winter, never get too ill due to it and recover quickly, but in the past year I have gotten a cold/flu maybe like 4 or 5 times and I think I am getting worse symptoms (e.g. having a mild fever one or two days when I catch a cold, which I never used to) and taking longer to recover than I would previously. This has led me to wonder whether something might be affecting my immune system, but I am pretty sure that I did not make any significant changes in obvious factors like sleep, diet, activity level, stress, etc. Does theMotte have any other ideas what might cause one to get ill more often and more severely and what can be done about it?
If you’re 30+, that’s just a natural part of getting older, unfortunately.
I had covid, which really knocked me on my ass, and then my next cold after that a few months later was notably more severe than other colds I had had in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if covid does have longterm impacts on the immune system.
This does not align with my experience at all -- all of the old dudes I've ever know are proud of their 'zero sick days since 2005 (or whatever)' and as I stack up the years I find that frequency and severity of respiratory illness gets less and less. (including my covid experience FWIW)
I always chalked this up to increased immune system experience with various circulating viruses; ie. previous exposure to similar things to whatever's going around.
Recent example: My kid returned from a trip and was totally knocked on his ass for a week upon his return -- not covid, but hit him worse than when he had that. Around when he recovered, my wife got it almost as bad for about another week. Me? Nada. I just assumed it was something I'd already picked up in my travels -- which just accumulates with age.
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