to think that being cold and wet does not make you ill?

[MaMight]

I have friends who often mention that their child is sick "because they got caught in the rain" or "because they came home from swimming with wet hair".

Surely you get ill because of a virus or bacteria?

These are well informed, sensible women.

I have expressed my doubts that damp socks can cause a snotty nose, but they say that all they know is that after getting cold and / or wet, their child unfailingly develops a cough / a snotty nose / a sore throat or similar.

I am starting to doubt myself.

This is the sort of thing my mother still believes but her generation do believe this, you can't catch cold from getting wet.

you are right

but the reason this is said is that if you get very cold and wet then your body has to work hard to warm you up and you may be more vulnerable to catching the things going round

type thing.....

....maybe.....

My Dh has absolutely no idea how bodies work (if your tummy is rumbling then you are losing weight, your "eye teeth" have something to do with your eyes), but then if you listen to his mother then she has no idea how bodies work either and that is the type of thing she genuinely believes too (her DH once had a knee replacement that didn't work because "his blood got too hot" when actually he did absolutely none of the physio at all).

my friend believes this as well? i have to bite my lip to stop myself laughing when she rants about it. she believes she is right and thats the end of it. maybe the rain is full of secret viruses

I have always been about this, my pil are very big on it.
They think I got the flu in October because the week before I went swimming in the sea.

They also can never beleive that babies cry for any other reason than "windies" which has been supremely annoying over the years.

I think being cold and wet lowers your resistance to infection for the reasons Trinity says

I think you are right. You get colds and flu from bacteria and viruses. Most people seem to believe that you can catch a chill. I got evil looks and tuts from old bags yesterday when DD shed her coat after school... she was still wearing a vest, polo shirt, pinafore, tights and shoes FFS - hardly prancing around in her pants. She had been running and jumping around so got hot.

thank you for allowing me to rant about this

Everybody here in Italy believes that.
There is an actual illness called a "hit of air".
Dp has it every time he sets foot out of the house.
Softplays all have hairdryers and parents run round like loons after their children (no, not because they are kicking the shit out of other children, though they are) but because they are sweating. Which is Very Dangerous Indeed.

So your body is putting more effort into keeping you warm than maintaining your immune system?

Hmm. I'm not convinced.

I think you get ill because you either breath in air-borne virus thingies, or you shake hands or touch a door knob and then touch your face and get bacterial germ thingies.

There was a study done recently at Cardiff uni, which I think suggested a link between having cold feet and succumbing to a cold or virus....

Viruses survive for longer in the cold, which is why you are more likely to get ill in the winter.

I saw this on a Horizon, so I am right

I remember the study with the feet in cold water - and they found NO relationship between being cold and catching a cold.

It's from a virus, not because you've shivered a bit.

My MIL is constantly going on about getting a cold from wearing t shirts that ride up when you bend over and don't get me started on when I 'caught' tonsilitus from not wearing a polo neck and scarf!

LOL my DH always goes on about 'cathching a chill'...I'm not entirely sure what a 'chill' is

Illness is usually caused by virus or bacteria. However cold damp air means that viruses live longer and are more likely to be around. Hence this year being a bad year for illnesses.

If you are already on verge of illness or already ill or recovering from illness fresh air is good for you. However cold damp air is not.

Cold damp air is a hinderence to recovery.
Whilst I was trying to recover from pneumonia is Jan and Feb I was advised by all medical people to avoid cold and wet air.

God DH's family are full of this kind of shit and that, combined with a very sketchy education, has given DH absolutely NO idea how bodies work. He talks about cold getting 'in your bones' if you don't wear slippers or sit on a cold bench and when the cold sets in....well you better watch out!...

In DH's family every ill is due to getting cold and so my poor nephew at 2 weeks old was wrapped up in hundreds of layers and blankets when he got a cold and slight temperature. No matter that what they were doing was actually dangerous.

Grrrrr.

Wiseoldelf, your memory does not serve you well- they did find a connection, in the fact that cold viruses are more likely to cause cold symptoms if the person is cold -
here and here (go down to the heading 'Can a chill cause a cold?')

Getting cold and wet sets of an asthma episode for poor little Victorian me. Constitution of a very elderly, nearly dead ox, me.

I remember being warned repeatedly about getting a "chill in your kidneys" if I didn't wear a big coat. What's that all about?

The thing is, everybody is breathing in airborne viruses all the time. Not a day goes by in which you are not exposed to germs. But most people don't fall ill every time they touch a door knob with germs on. Whether you fall ill or not depends on how well you are fighting them on that particular occasion. Some people are very affected by getting chilled: my dd invariably comes down with a virus infection afterwards. Of course, it's not because the chilling causes the infection; it's because she can't ward off the infections she might potentially be catching every day.

Also, the paed told her the other day that dd's anxiety problems and chronic joint pains are probably a main actor behind why she gets more virus infections than other teens. Of course that doesn't mean the paed doesn't believe in germs: she is just trying to explain why dd succumbs to the germs that everybody is exposed to all the time.

It's like when someone has an immune disorder: the immune disorder doesn't cause infections; it just makes you less able to fight them.

Of course that doesn't mean that most people are at risk from getting chilled (I absolutely thrive on it): but there are sensitive individuals.

Yes, there is apparently evidence, that although you do have to be infected bu virus or bacteria to catch an infection, a lower body temperature does in fact make it more easy for the infection to establish itself. My mum quotes the research about the cold feet all the time- insisting we all wear socks and slippers on cold floors.

I constantly hear about a wind here called a fohn. It is responsible for all manner of ailments from coughs and colds to hallucinations.

Is it not the case that the 'fohn' brings negatively charged ions? In Menorca a cold dry wind blows from the north in the winter and allegedly cause all sorts of ills, depression, etc.

Load of old bollocks. Coughs and colds are spread by virus and bacteria.

End of.

I have a mate who knows about viruses for his job and he says it is because viruses thrive more easily at lower temperatures.

Hence why our body develops a fever to fight off infection.