How to Avoid Catching a Cold

How to Avoid Catching a Cold Lisa Birnbach: I’m Lisa Birnbach. Here is a situation we all face in dread every cold and flu season. You’re at work around a bus or standing in line next to some guy who’s sneezing and hacking or walking germ machine, or is he? How can you tell whether you’re contagious? With us to explain is Doctor Jordan Josephson, an ear, nose and throat specialist and author of “Sinus Relief Now”. I sit on planes a lot and I figure I’m getting sick every time I get on the plane, is that true? Dr. Josephson: Well, the bottom line is when you get on the plane, it’s a very close exhaust and some people are breathing, and they’re sneezing, and they’re coughing that air is being re-circulated, so you’re right. There are going to be germs on the plane. How do you deal with it? Well, irrigating when you get off the plane or wash the infections that you’ve met may have breathed into your nose away. So that will help you. Lisa Birnbach: Uh-huh. Dr. Josephson: Being at your best shape as far as being well rested, eating right, staying well hydrated will also help your nose drain and clear those infections before they get into your bloodstream. Lisa Birnbach: Can you catch a cold from kissing the cheek of someone who has a cold? Dr. Josephson: You can catch a cold just from breathing the air that they’re breathing and you can only go so far. I think keeping yourself in a best state possible will help you and your body fight those infections and can make you okay. If your kids are sick and they come home, on the first couple of days, what you are going to do? You’re not going to your kids, I mean you have to treat them and help them. Lisa Birnbach: Yes, I quarantine them. So when my kids are feeling crummy all I want to do is hold them and let them sleep in my bed sometimes. Dr. Josephson: So there are risks and benefits to being around with sick people. The more you’re around different colds, the more you’re immunity can deal with them, and the more resistant you will be and less likely to get a cold. Lisa Birnbach: When one of your children is sick, it does seem like that cold or flu spreads or strep throat spreads around the house like wildfire. Is there a way to keep your kids from not infecting one another? Dr. Josephson: Very hard, because it’s in the air. But certainly, during the first two or three days, you may want to tell the sick child, stay in bed, bundle up. The other is kid is going to be in school anyway, so there’s going to be a decreased sensitivity because they’re not going to be around. Lisa Birnbach: Right. Dr. Josephson: And when they are around, you know, kids and TLC is important but let’s leave the little Johnny alone. Let him rest. You guys go play in the other room. And I think that will do the trick. And as a parent, you really have to be there for that sick child. Lisa Birnbach: If they share a room? If you have a kid sharing a room with the kid with the cold, move one of them out? Dr. Josephson: I would move one of them out. I mean, they’re not going to be sleeping in the same bed but you may want to use an air purifier. Certainly having both of them irrigate with saline spray, and children do irrigate with saline spray. They even irrigate with many parts. I mean, as early as the age of four or five and I have kids at two years using saline sprays and you would be amazed that how excited they are about washing their nose out, and that’s going to help them from catching cold from their sibling. Lisa Birnbach: There are wives tales about how you can get and be contagious. For example, kissing, shaking hands, which is more dangerous? Dr. Josephson: John was passed on your hands? I mean, virus can be on your hands, it can be on your clothing, they could be anywhere. They could be on your cheeks. They could be on your lips, especially if you’re the one not sick. Giving a child a kiss that’s feeling sick, you’re doing him more good than harm and you’re doing yourself more good by making him feel better and get better sooner. Lisa Birnbach: Can you get a virus from a door handle, from a bus? People they’ll say there are germs in hotel bed spreads. I mean are you going to get sick from all of that stuff? Dr. Josephson: You know viruses don’t linger too often for a very long time. They’re usually short in their lifespan as far as being out on the bedspread. I don’t believe you think you to have worry there. But certainly, you know, on buses, telephones, things that people are handling constant. Lisa Birnbach: Cash machines. Dr. Josephson: Cash machines, money, being around infections actually good because it helps your immunity respond and makes you capable to combat when the big doses of infection come your way. Lisa Birnbach: Now, I’m under the impression that 24 hours exactly after you’ve been on an antibiotic, you are no longer contagious. I’m wondering if that’s true. Dr. Josephson: There are no studies to support that 24-hour is the number. I would basically tell people, “Listen, when you’re feeling well enough to get out of bed and you’re feeling a little bit better, that’s the time that it’s okay to go out into the crown.” But if you’re feeling just run down, and you want to get into bed, your body is telling you, “You shouldn’t be around to other people.” Lisa Birnbach: Right. Dr. Josephson: Get into that. Lisa Birnbach: Right. It makes sense. Dr. Josephson: Okay. Lisa Birnbach: Thanks Doctor Josephson. Dr. Josephson: Your body knows. Lisa Birnbach: Yeah, it knows. It knows more than I do. I’m Lisa Birnbach.