A killer cold? Even the healthy may be vulnerable

Source: CNN

A high school varsity athlete, a sturdy guy with a health history blissfully free of blips, 18-year-old Joseph Spencer had little reason to think anything was seriously wrong when he got sick last April. The vomiting, chills, fever -- "It must be the flu," he thought.Within hours, Spencer's fever was 104 degrees. Within days, he was in the intensive care unit at Providence Portland Medical Center in Oregon with full-blown pneumonia. Spencer's doctor was afraid this sturdy teenage boy was going to die.





Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/19/killer.cold/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

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Folks, especially those with children please do not take for granted it is just a cold. Also to those that have pre existing conditions that makes them more prone to illness, please read...

Ben David

The biggest risk of getting any bug is developing pneumonia. My roomie always manages to develop bronchitis (if not pneumonia) everytime he gets a cold.
I've finally managed to get it through his head that taking so much cough syrup is NOT the best idea. You need to be able to cough that stuff out of your lungs. (tip from a nurse 15 years ago when I got walking pneumonia).

have guafenesin (sp?) which loosens mucous so you can cough it out...or you can just buy the guafenesin by itself.

I believe her exact words were "Yes, it hurts, but you gotta clear that stuff out of there." :)

that an expectorant AND a suppressant were in the same formula!

healthy because they play sports and never have had any major medical issues is ridiculous. It only surprises me how resiliant the human body is to resist so many toxins, viruses, and various other pathogens that can harm the body. You have to put 2 and 2 together.. Healthy food on the rise, healthcare unaffordable, and then children who should be healthy sucumbing to a cold.

as I sit with my box of tissues and typical cold/flu appearance. Haven't been out of the house for two days. Now CNN tells me I'm gonna die.

Oh well. :)

Sick for 3 days now, was day off yesterday, called in today.

I believe it was adenovirus that took the life of Mrs. OperationMindCrime, when her immune system was compromised by chemotherapy. -- Wanet

at least 10 people had it (i was one of them) and two were diagnosed with pneumonia (one is in the hospital). it's a fast, nasty virus with lots of congestion and coughing - be careful, people!

Put me out of work for three days, chills, fever, weakness... oddly, no cough, so it could have been something else entirely.

Seriously, though, I have heard there are mixed results in studies examining Vitamin C's effectiveness against the common cold. Still, it is a good idea to keep up with your fruits and vegetables -- juices, sauces, salads (be careful, though, with grapefruit, as it interacts with some medications). I'm a big fan of chicken soup, too.

However, I also got a pneumonia shot on my doctor's recommendation, given my medical history. The shot is good for something like three to five years.

But when in doubt about anything, consult the doctor. And use good sense with hygiene around the workplace, school, and home.

Wash your hands. A lot. And although I don't like the antibacterial wipe-soap-whatever bandwagon, it's not a bad idea to use those wipes that grocery stores are providing now.

In the locker room at my gym the other day, a woman came out of one of the stalls, walked up to the sink , and more or less just spritzed water onto her hands. No soap. Over in 3 seconds. Gross.

I have gone strict over the last six years and have not had a cold in over 4 years. I think there is more than coincidence at play especially when I had 3-4 a year since my teens prior to 2001.

...and I've gone 5 years at a stretch without a sniffle.

Colds and flus are virally transmitted, and no matter how "healthy" you think you are, what you eat, how much you work out, what zodiac sign you are, how much you donate to charity, if you've not had that strain before, you *WILL* get sick, it's just a matter of what degree and that usually has more to do with the virulence of the strain. When you take cold medicines or vitamin C or other such, what you are doing is mitigating symptoms (which largely involve the side-effects of a functioning immune system in the midst of its counterassault).

I'd consider other possible changes to your environment that occurred at about the same time as more likely explanation.

It killed 25 million people in its first 25 weeks of exitence. At it's peak, it was responsible for the deaths of approximately 30,000 New Yorkers...PER WEEK. The population of the state has doubled since then, so you can imagine what the toll would be today.

when it comes to colds and viruses. We don't have anything better to fight with (in effectiveness) than they did then. When the CDC's best advice is stay home and wash your hands a lot, you know there's not much they're going to offer to make you feel any better.

and gave my friend pneumonia. It acted like a cold but was as intense as any flu I ever had.

A temp that high is really bad.

At first, I had a sore throat, then I rapidly began feeling worse and worse. Within a few hours I devoloped a fever and chills, and I NEVER get a fever for some reason. On the third day, I called my doctor first thing in the morning as I was in horrible shape. She diagnosed me with pneumonia on the spot...said my lungs sounded like paper. She could not believe I just came down with symptoms 3 days before.

I knew I was pretty ill, but had NO idea it was pneumonia. I am glad I dragged my butt into the dr.
She put me on some strong antibiotics in case it was bacterial, gave me some strong codeine cough expectorant so I could get the crap out of my lungs, and an inhaler to help me breathe when the coughing spasms got too bad.

I doubt it was the same thing the OP was speaking of, but there is some nasty stuff going around to be sure.