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| More on the way, probably not too many more. by jeep 05/01/2005, 6:48pm PDT | ||||
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Entropy Stew wrote: Actually, in the case of a head cold the virus often irritates the area enough to lead to a sinus infection. That infection can then irritate the jaw, the teeth, but most commonly the throat, lungs and stomach. For some reason your doctor will always deny a direct connection, apparently whatever commonly gives people sinus infections can't survive in other parts of the body, but you inhale enough of that nasty lung butter while you sleep that everything gets irritated and prone to infections that can take hold elsewhere. So the virus itself, even if it's a short term annoyance (this one wasn't) apparently triggers an allergic response in the sinus tissue of some people, and so even if you're only technically sick and contagious for a day or two, you can't tell because your body can't fight off normal bacteria and the virus at the same time. In a roundabout way, the virus lands you on keflex for 10 days. Given the numbers, I always figured we were the human race's buffer against this kind of stuff, like a lizard's tail, just there to give the predator something to chew on while the rest of the lizard runs away and grows another. Back when everybody had 10 or 12 kids you'd lose a couple to TB, to pox or whatever. So we have the technology to get past the childhood illnesses, but evolution takes a long time, so people are still generating 1 sick kid out of every 6 or so. At this point, it's not that the antibiotics aren't doing their job, it's that 15% of the population doesn't have the standard-issue immune system. That's plenty of sick people to incubate marginal viruses until they become dangerous to the rest. The tail isn't falling off and the predator is closing in on the rest of the lizard. Anyway, it won't last. People always look at this stuff and figure there's a slippery slope or whatever, but in reality we're more likely to adjust to this before it gets bad enough to send us back to the dark ages. The viruses will become strong enough that they'll start wiping sick kids out again, or medicine will make another leap, probably some blend of steroids and gene therapy. When I had a bad cold and couldn't shake it with antibiotics they'd hit me with a cortizone shot, maybe they could mitigate the long term side effects of heavier use if they could make that kind of treatment using our own genetic material. /jeep/ ...neds a shot to save him from MMOs |
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