The sniffles

We Montanans are a hardy bunch. We live in a state that seems to have three months of summer with nine months of winter. It is this short-lived summer that can sometimes lead us to not making the best choices when it comes to springtime clothing. As I lay in bed listening to my daughter, Marley, sniffle and cough I cannot help but think about earlier that day.

The sun was out, no wind and it was almost 50 degrees. Ideal weather for T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops, right? While this may be jumping the gun a bit for summer clothes, what you wear, surprisingly to many, does not affect your susceptibility to catching a cold.

One of the biggest factors that affect our vulnerability to catching colds is the quality of the air we breathe. In summer, we play outside breathing nice fresh air. In the short days of winter, we spend a lot more time inside breathing the germs that are contained in our homes, schools and anywhere else we hide from the cold.

Once we breathe in the germ that is the most common vector for the common cold, rhinovirus, we can expect a number of symptoms to show up over the days ahead. I do not know which symptom is worst when it comes to colds. I hate feeling like my head is going to explode in a giant eruption of snot. I would not willingly sign up for this, but now, with two little kids, it is the cough at night I dislike more. I try to hold my coughs in because I do not want to wake up the kids, and when they cough, again, I am worried it is going to wake them up. What causes these reactions when we have colds?

The appearance of snot or mucous is Marley’s first sign of a cold. We start producing excess amounts of mucous in an attempt to keep germs from getting to the lungs and the rest of our bodies. The excess in mucous is partially responsible for some of the other negative feelings we have—like the dreaded nighttime cough. The excess travels down the sinuses to the back of the throat which causes us to cough.

Mucous, however, is not the only unpleasant reaction our bodies produce to ward off the invaders. When Marley has a fever it is one of the most difficult times of the common-cold cycle. I want to do whatever I can to make her feel better. In actuality, her brain is doing a lot of the work for me. Her hypothalamus, an amazing automatic regulator of a number of metabolic processes, is turning up her temperature in hopes it will make it an uninhabitable place for the germs.

While all these symptoms are not fun to deal with on any level, it is important for them to be there to help us feel better. Next time, while I am lying in bed with Marley listening to our symphony of coughing, I will be grateful that the mucous is keeping worse things away.