How Is the Common Cold Spread?
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The "Common" Cold
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One minute you're feeling fine and the next your head is stuffy, your nose is drippy, your eyes are watering and all you want to do is go to bed. You've caught a cold, referred to by doctors as an upper respiratory infection. The rhinoviruses ("rhino" is from the Greek, meaning "nose") that most often cause colds are so numerous and widespread that most adults will catch at least two colds each year and children eight to 10. It's the world's most "common" illness. The misery begins in the nose, which becomes a kind of command post where a rhinovirus directs the manufacture and distribution of cold viruses by the millions.
Spreading a Cold
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Person-to-person contact is the most likely way to catch or spread a cold. A cold starts with any one of more than 200 pesky viruses that has been somehow deposited in the mucous membranes lining your nose. Have you been close by when a sick person sneezed, spraying virus particles into the air for you to breathe? Perhaps you shook hands with a sick person, or your child or spouse is sick. Maybe you only came in contact with a contaminated surface, a doorknob or countertop. Rubbing your eyes or nose afterward is all it takes to give the cold virus a safe place to reproduce. Though a cold virus cannot reproduce unless inside a living cell, Dr. James Steckelberg, an internist at the Mayo Clinic, states the virus can remain infective outside the body "from a few seconds to 48 hours, depending on the specific virus and type of surface."
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Now That You Have a Cold
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You will first experience cold symptoms 36 to 72 hours after exposure, which is also the time when you become most infective toward others. Those little microbes may have hitched a ride from a doorknob to your hands to your eyes, where they traveled down your tear ducts straight to the mucous membranes in your nose. While you have gone blithely about your life, they have been hard at work, building a thriving germ factory. They live and multiply in your nasal secretions and contaminate your hands every time you rub your nose, blow your nose or cover your mouth and nose to sneeze. Once the virus is transferred to your hands, you can leave those germs anywhere, on anything or anyone you touch. When you sneeze, you propel virus-laden droplets into the air to land where they may, waiting for their next unsuspecting victim. It may be especially hard to keep the cold virus from your family or others in close quarters with you, such as your co-workers in "cube-ville."
Stop the Spread
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Wash your hands. It's the single best action you can take to prevent the spread of colds. Though hand washing does not kill the rhinovirus, it does allow you to rinse the germs away. Keep your hands away from your face. Sneeze and cough into your elbow. Treat your cold. Take medicine to control your symptoms at the first sign, when you are most infective. According to Commoncold, Inc., because cold medicine reduces the amount of sneezing and nasal secretions, it reduces transmission of the virus. A sensible diet, and plenty of fluids and rest, even after you feel better, will help keep your immune system in peak condition.
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