Quote:
Originally Posted by AFireInside
The immune system is not a muscle, and it will be fine "without exercise". A strong immune system is why you have allergies or autoimmune diseases. You want a balanced immune system, and you can't "strengthen" it, nor do you want to. Be as healthy as you can to keep your immune system at it's best, but that's all you'll get. Intentionally getting sick isn't really beneficial.
"Dr. Cassel says another common misconception is having a "strong" immune system is what's best for your body.
"You actually don't want your immune system to be stronger, you want it to be balanced," Dr. Cassel says. "Too much of an immune response is just as bad as too little response."
Dr. Cassel says most of the things people take to boost their immune system, such as vitamins or supplements, don't have any effect on your immune response."
https://www.cedars-sinai.org/blog/bo...ne-system.html |
Thank you for this! I have finally retrained about half of our extended families to stop saying "boost your immune system!" Like no, my dudes, you don't want a boosted immune system - if they're looking for an example of why not, I just point to our daughter. THAT is a boosted immune system - it's in hyper overdrive. TRUST ME, you
really do NOT want that.
Vitamins and supplements pretty much just make for expensive urine getting flushed down the toilet. In certain cases, like our daughter, who has a metabolic disorder, certain vitamins and supplements become "medicine" after a fashion, because she is extremely deficient in them. Her geneticist calls it a mitochondrial cocktail. Anything she doesn't absorb, well, she gets expensive pee too but she is seeing some benefits from it. For her particular metabolic disorder, there are no real "treatments" beyond the mito cocktail and even that is just termed as a "supportive measure."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus
It does for kids Dr. Pepsi, there are 2 parts to the immune system.
- innate immune system, This is your child's rapid response system. It is the first to respond when it finds an invader, the innate immune system is inherited.
- acquired immune system, it makes special proteins ( antibodies) to protect the body from a specific invader, these antibodies are developed by cells called B lymphocytes after the body has been exposed to the invader, after exposure, the immune system will recognize the invader and defend against it, the acquired immune system changes during your child's life. Immunizations train your child's immune system to make antibodies to protect them from harmful diseases.
Kids absolutely need exposures, it's not a fluke that children's hospitals are being over run by RSV outbreaks.
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Wut?
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Anyway....
We all had whatever filthy mcnasty is going around, in October. Sounds pretty much like what most here are describing - we tested several times & got negatives for COVID. My son, his fiance and our grandson all had it as well.
Something to look out for post whatever this ick is, with your kids, is
Henoch-Schönlein purpura. We had our grandson with us the last weekend of October, camping, and ended up having to call our son & daughter in law to come get him because he needed to be seen in an emerg.
Given the wait times in Calgary, they opted to take him into Sundre (we camp about 20 minutes SE of Sundre) to get checked. I was reasonably certain it was HSP that he had, based on the observable symptoms & the docs in Sundre confirmed it. Said with the uptick in all the respiratory junk, they were seeing an uptick in HSP as well. It's a form of vasculitis. Fortunately, it was picked up on within 26 hours of his first vague complaints (knee was sore), so he's just had to go for weekly check ups and give urine samples and he's pretty much back to normal now. Adults can get HSP as well, but that's pretty rare in comparison to kids, and can be a rougher course.
We all got our latest COVID bivalent & flu shot a couple or three weeks ago, as soon as everyone was recovered. We are masking heavily again, especially as my father in law was given a diagnosis of possible bladder cancer the end of last month and we were supposed to be going up to Edmonton to help them out, as he was scheduled for surgery this coming Tuesday. But, given the explosion of all the influenza/RSV/Covid, they called yesterday & rescheduled him tentatively for December 13. So, we're being even more cautious with the masking etc, to keep well, so we can assist my in-laws in a couple of weeks. Other than my husband going to work, we are pretty much isolating again, as we do every flu season. Occasionally I go get a few groceries, but that's the extent of it. The only exception is camping, but besides one other guy, we're pretty much the only ones that winter camp out where our trailer is, so it's fairly isolating, we don't have to be around people.