Your eyes water, your nose tickles and twitches, your throat itches, and you gasp—AAAAAAHHH CHOOOO! A moment of relief, and it begins again.

T’is not the season to be sneezin’ therefore it’s that bane of humanity, the common cold. For the next 4-10 days you will suffer. Or maybe not? Can the common cold be stopped? Prevented? Cured? Well they’re working on it. In the meantime, what can be done?

Things You Never Wanted to Know but Can Learn Anyway

The common cold is usually caused by a picornavirus, either rhinovirus or enterovirus. These meanies attach themselves to cells in your nose and throat via a protein coat. Then they shed the coat as their genetic material enters your cell and takes over. The cell stops listening to its own nucleic-acid encoded instructions and starts taking orders from the viral code. Result—your cell becomes a virus production factory.

When the cell bursts, swarms of new viruses are released which attach to other cells, and the cycle repeats. As more cells fall to the invaders, you begin to feel tired, your nose runs, you sneeze to try to expel the enemy. You may run a low fever and have headaches and a sore throat, in other words—a cold.

You can get multiple colds in your lifetime because there are multiple types of cold viruses. Rhinovirus which causes about 50% of all colds has over 100 serotypes, therefore the possibility of over 100 rhinoviral colds.

So How Do You Know if It’s a Cold?

After all it could be flu or a sinus infection or even allergies. The keys are fever, mucus, and duration. In adults colds and allergies have either a low fever (<100 F) or no fever, and a high fever (>100) for a sinus infection and influenza. Nasal discharge for allergies is clear, while for colds it can be that thick gooey yellow junk. Sinusitis will definitely have thick yellow or green mucus. The nasty colored mucus from a cold will last only a couple of days, whereas a bacterial infection like sinusitis could last over a week.

An antihistamine should give immediate relief if allergies are the culprit. If they aren’t, it won’t hurt.

Isn’t it absolutely amazing that we all survived childhood? Especially considering that we are constantly bombarded by viruses and bacteria of all kinds yet we remain relatively disease free. Why? Because we have a fantastic strategic defense arsenal, our immune system, and that topic leads us to the next.