Can cold, wet weather make you sick?

Day after day we have had rain and rain and more rain to the point I believe we may never have to suffer through another drought again. It is frustrating for my little boy whose season-opening T-ball and soccer games have been canceled due to too-soggy playing fields. The five-day forecast has no glimmer of sun, just gray clouds and lightning bolts. I fear this next week of ballgames will be canceled as well.

For entertainment Saturday my son burned some of his energy by dancing in a heavy downpour of rain. I watched from my in-law’s garage and laughed as he tumbled in the wet grass and spun around in the driveway like a dancer. My mother-in-law peeked out the back door and was mortified. “Come in from out of that rain! You will catch a cold!” she cried. I didn’t enforce that order. My rationale – if standing in streaming water made you sick, we would never take showers. I told my MIL that it simply was not true. She said, yes it was.

The old wives tales of getting soaked in the rain or going outside in cold weather without a coat will make you sick have been circulating for more than 500 years. In fact, the common sickness back then was called a “cold” because it was believed that cold weather was what caused the ailment. We now know that colds and flu are caused by viruses that invade the body and take over our defenses. More than 200 different viruses can cause the common cold.

It’s true that colds and flu are most prevalent in the colder months. Some experts say that it is because we spend more time indoors in close contact with other people. The low humidity of winter also helps viruses flourish, especially in noses, which are more apt to be dry and cracked during the colder months.

Here’s another interesting fact about illnesses. The flu tends to be more rampant when temperatures drop below 41 degrees.

Here’s where my MIL may have one up on me on this old wives tale. A UK study showed that volunteers who submerged their feet in 50-degree water for 20 minutes were more likely to develop cold symptoms over the following week than those whose feet stayed warm and dry. Researchers explain this by saying the body can keep a cold virus in check but when exposed to cold, wet feet, the immune system can weaken causing a full-fledge illness.

Coincidentally, my son has cold today. He started showing symptoms late last week, days before he wallowed in the rain. But I still hold firm to my belief that the rain did not cause his symptoms. As long as there is rain in the forecast and my son is hungry for entertainment (and it is not thundering and lightning outside), then he has my blessing to frolic in the rain and find some joy is this never-ending miserable weather.

Sources: About.com, How-come.net, VideoJug.com
Photo, Flickr, markomni

CDC: School-aged kids at high risk of complications with N1H1

In the first three weeks of school, my son was home sick for four days. The second week of school he had strep throat. The following week he came home with a high fever, chills, and was lethargic and vomiting. Normally, I’d feed him Tylenol and baby him unless his symptoms got worse. But N1H1, the feared swine flu, is making its way through the Southeast. Virtually all flu cases at this time are considered to be the Swine flu by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). I had heard too many stories of otherwise healthy people dying because of the disease, so I rushed my son to the doctor. He tested negative for both flu and a reoccurrence of strep, and within 24 hours he was feeling fine. I heaved a sigh of relief, but was hungry to learn more about this feared outbreak and who was at risk.

A detailed report released by the CDC, and reported today by theNorth County Times, puts the condition into perspective, but hardly puts my mind at ease. According to the report, unlike the usual seasonal flu that kills half or more of children age 4 and younger, the swine flu is taking a higher toll on school-age kids. At least 40 – or about one in 13 U.S. swine flu deaths – are in children between the ages of 5 and 17. Some epidemiologists say that may be because school-age kids are more apt to be around other kids at camps and school than younger children. That may also explain why the Southeast is seeing more cases of swine flu than other regions, because our schools tend to start earlier.

Other differences between the ordinary flu and N1H1 detailed in the CDC report include secondary conditions. For example, two-thirds of the children who died from swine flu had an underlying neurodevelopmental condition such as epilepsy or cerebral palsy, compared to one-third with ordinary flu. And, other germs, such as a bacterial infection, on top of the swine flu proves more deadly to otherwise healthy children. Of the 10 children who were healthy before they got N1H1 but died from the virus, eight had a bacterial infection, such as bacterial pneumonia, along with the flu.

The CDC doesn’t track the usual seasonal flu so it is hard to say whether the swine flu is more prevalent than the ordinary flu. But there is some good news. The virus doesn’t appear to be mutating to become more deadly than it is now, as some scientists have feared.

Photo, JWJourney