Why having cold making me feel better?

[Mimi81]

Why many of us feeling better while having a cold?? What is the explanation? And what cloues it can give us? I sometimes wish i coul get a shot av a cold virus every month or so.....do you have any theories or explanations??

 

[Wishful]

ME does seem to involve the immune system, and the immune system is complex, with various feedback loops. So, for one individual, responding to a viral infection might bias one of those loops in a way that reduces ME symptoms. It's not as simple as "which cytokine should I increase", since some of those feedback loops involve non-immune functions, such as liver or microbiome. Sadly, my local drugstore doesn't offer a selection of cytokines for experimentation. You could experiment with various immune system modulators. Elderberries, for example, have a strong effect on my antiviral response, ending an infection quickly. If elderberries work the same way for you (not guaranteed), that might provide additional clues as to what's going on. Exertion triggers and increase in IFN-g 24 hrs later, so if you don't feel a reduction in your symptoms 24 hrs after exercise, you can probably strike IFN-g off your list of suspects. If you're lucky, you might find something that provides the benefit without unpleasant side-effects, such as drippy nose for weeks.

 

[Dysfunkion]

I haven't been able to get normal sick in well over a couple years now. I will have flu like symptoms daily depending on the trigger load of the day but my body can't seem to mount a full immune response to anything besides a crappy feverish without a fever thing to allergens. Almost as if it's not able to ramp things up enough activity wise to do anything about the situation. They're worse in the early morning and get better as the day goes on. I would be interesting if I could actually try individual cytokines to see what effect they have on me but that's also probably get dangerous if something goes very wrong.

 

[Florida Guy]

My theory is that cfsme starts in the brain which then affects the immune system and the use of glycosis for energy, in other words, burning sugars, for example using oxygen. This is normal but somehow the brain causes the cells to switch over to a process that does not use 02 directly called anaerobic metabolism. This does not work as well so we have less energy and using muscles a little bit too much causes pem plus we get brain fog and other problems.

The immune function seems to be involved and oddly enough in many individuals it seems to be either working well or over active to some degree. This explains why we rarely get minor colds but may get cold and flu symptoms without being sick. I haven't had a cold in many years so I don't know if it would feel better but I have sinus issues most of the time but there seems to be no infection

I'm not sure why anyone would feel better having a cold, maybe it distracts you from other symptoms or as wishful said, it may make some other immune activity that makes us feel sick go away temporarily

 

[heapsreal]

I think it may upregulate the immune system, so if any other chronic infections are present, the immune system can possibly suppress them
A couple years back when I was going through months of persistent chronic headaches, my wife caught covid and was as sick as a dog. I also got covid but all I got was a sore throat, my chronic headaches disappeared for a week and I felt quite good for the week other than a sore throat.

 

[Mimi81]

ME does seem to involve the immune system, and the immune system is complex, with various feedback loops. So, for one individual, responding to a viral infection might bias one of those loops in a way that reduces ME symptoms. It's not as simple as "which cytokine should I increase", since some of those feedback loops involve non-immune functions, such as liver or microbiome. Sadly, my local drugstore doesn't offer a selection of cytokines for experimentation. You could experiment with various immune system modulators. Elderberries, for example, have a strong effect on my antiviral response, ending an infection quickly. If elderberries work the same way for you (not guaranteed), that might provide additional clues as to what's going on. Exertion triggers and increase in IFN-g 24 hrs later, so if you don't feel a reduction in your symptoms 24 hrs after exercise, you can probably strike IFN-g off your list of suspects. If you're lucky, you might find something that provides the benefit without unpleasant side-effects, such as drippy nose for weeks.

Oh thats interesting! But i cant just go to my doctor and say lets try different cytokines? How can someone get those drugs?! And which immune system modulatores are available for ME patients to try? Do you know? LDN i know about but beside that

 

[Dysfunkion]

Oh thats interesting! But i cant just go to my doctor and say lets try different cytokines? How can someone get those drugs?! And which immune system modulatores are available for ME patients to try? Do you know? LDN i know about but beside that

I don't even know how you'd go about getting cytokines as I've never heard of anyone using them before even prescribed. I don't like the term immune modulator because in my case anyways so many random supplements have given rise to some pretty wonky immune cascades before. I don't even know what I did over the past year to get me out of severe to moderate and hovering in that area, I would just try things and ride those reactions out when I found some cascade that pushed things in a positive direction consistently. I have a bad gut feeling about LDN with me, seems higher risk for me. I've always wanted to give glutathione itself a try but experiences on that also are also mixed and it seems to be hard to get right even if you do respond well to it.

 

[Wishful]

I don't know which immune system modulators to suggest trying. There's lots of information on the internet, and it's up to you to decide which ones you might want to try. I think you're unlikely to find anything that will help figure out which one--if any--might be most effective for your ME. I do suggest starting with safe ones, such as herbals.

Prednisone gave me temporary remission, but just the first two times, then it had no effect. I tried cyclosporine, which is considered a strong immunosuppresant, but it had no effect, possibly because it doesn't cross the BBB. Elderberry is an immunostimulant that works really well for treating my colds. LDN worked great for suppressing neuropathic pain, but I never noticed any effect on other ME symptoms or any other immune system effects. I'm pretty sure I tried methotrexate, but it had no noticeable effect.

If you do find some immunomodulators that do affect your ME, maybe you can figure out which cytokine might be involved. I haven't checked to see if something like elderberry has a list of which cytokines are increased or decreased.

Knowing that something in a viral infection affects your ME does at least narrow the possibilities for experimentation.

 

[roonie]

Yes, everytime I begin to take vit. C....a cold/flu comes on like clockwork. I've repeated this vit. C several times..., and always I get the same result

For many years, when my immune system was
"Overreacting" I couldn't catch a anything even when everything was "going around"...now it seems like my immune system has become exhausted

 

[Wishful]

Yes, everytime I begin to take vit. C....a cold/flu comes on like clockwork.

Me too, more or less. Sometime in my 20's, I noticed that whenever I ate oranges or had orange juice, I'd have some cold symptoms the next day. Just a sneeze or two and a slight feeling of a cold coming on, but then it would pass. It got my attention because VitC is supposed to prevent colds. It was just a minor oddity, so I didn't investigate any deeper.

Then at age 39, I ate some oranges, which I rarely did, and felt a flu coming on. It was gone the next day. A week or two later, I drank some OJ (it was on sale), and again the flu symptoms occurred, more severe, and passed the next day without developing further. I tried more OJ, and felt fine the next day. The following day, the flu symptoms abruptly rose, and I noticed that it was exactly the same time of day that I'd drank the OJ, and this time the symptoms were much more severe, including fever, sweating, etc. After that, I had the same response to other fruit juices that hadn't been a problem. It wasn't long before I had that reaction to other foods, until only the simplest foods (rice, cornstarch) didn't trigger a response.

I did figure out that it was a type IV reaction (t-cells), with a precise and consistent 48 hr delay. The medical system was no help at all. A rotation diet allowed me to eat more variety, one food family every 5 days. Then, 2.5 years after it started, some spoiled coconut milk flushed me out, and the type IV reaction was gone. It took a couple of years to realize that, because the same symptoms remained, except with a 20 minute delay. Eventually I figured out that what I had was ME.

So, did the type IV reaction trigger ME, or did I develop ME which triggered the type IV response?

FWIW, my immune system seemed quite strong before the problems started. I got fewer colds and flus than my sister, and my infections lasted much shorter. Many of my colds were just a few sneezes for a day or two.

There was a poll on immune response after developing ME. I can't find one on immune response before ME.

 

[Hip]

Why many of us feeling better while having a cold?? What is the explanation?

See this post.

 

[Wishful]

So, did the type IV reaction trigger ME, or did I develop ME which triggered the type IV response?

I found the answer to that question! I was thinking about my symptom of frequently sighing deeply, and recalled that I told a doctor about it in the first few months of my symptoms. That was when it seemed like a standard Type IV sensitivity. The sighing continues, decades after the Type IV sensitivity stopped, so it seems likely that it's an ME symptom, meaning that I had ME from the start. Well, logically, and I suppose it could be an unrelated comorbid condition. It seems much less likely that ME and Type IV sensitivity could trigger the same symptom.

IIRC, sighing is controlled by a very small cluster of neurons, so even a minor abnormality in function of those neurons or supporting glial cells could affect sighing.