Under the Weather

I've been a zombie for the past week—bad cold. I caught it on the last day of my ski trip to Mammoth with Grace and family. It's been so long since I had a cold (the last one was in September of 2006) that all the medications in my medicine cabinet were out of date. I don't even remember what I took when I had the last cold as I was in Arizona at the time. When I finally dragged myself to Walgreen's last week for more supplies, I discovered that my favorite medication has been pulled from the shelves. Somehow I missed the whole pseudephedrine thing. Not knowing what the reason was, I bought the PE substitute. It's the antihistamine that I want anyway. I just don't want to end up with bronchitis.

It's interesting that I caught both colds the same way, I overexerted myself physically, and then got a chill. In Arizona, my son and I went for a long hike up Pass Mountain in the 90 degree heat and then headed for the pool afterwards. We both came down with a cold simultaneously. At Mammoth, I skied all day and headed for the hot tub afterwards. Both times I was not getting my full 8 hours of sleep every night either. And sugar was involved. I pooh-pooed that idea at first. I mean how could one little slip, one little yielding to temptation cause so much trouble? I'd had flour-less chocolate cake two nights in a row. Flour-less, but not sugar-less.

Then I discovered one theory that glucose and vitamin C are similar in structure and too much of one displaces the other in our cells.

It has been known for many decades that sugar depresses the immune system. It was only in the 70s that they found out that vitamin C was needed by white blood cells so that they could phagocytize bacteria and viruses. White blood cells require a fifty times higher concentration, at least inside the cell as outside, so they have to accumulate vitamin C.

There is something called a phagocytic index, which tells you how rapidly a particular macrophage or lymphocyte can gobble up a virus, bacteria or cancer cell. In the 70s Linus Pauling knew that white blood cells needed a high dose of vitamin C and that is when he came up with his theory that you need high doses of vitamin C to combat the common cold.

Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects
By Ron Rosedale, M.D.
Presented at Designs for Health Institute's BoulderFest August 1999
Seminar

I also tried the hydrogen peroxide in the ear cure. But I was way too late in starting this therapy, so whether it really worked or not, I can't tell. I had already had my cold and slight fever for a week when I tried it, so maybe I was due to start feeling better anyway. The joke is that no matter what you do, or what you take, a cold lasts two weeks.

Anyway, after a week of rest and recuperation, I am feeling much better and am left with a honking cough which I hope will go away soon as it scares people away.