Why is Everyone Sick all the Time?

[joanfiz]

@lamourhjackson Same here. We had a constant stream of illnesses brought home from school last year, and my oldest kid had already missed 18 days due to illness. So far this year she's missed 2 days for illness, and it was a mild cold, nothing crazy.

 

[indhu]

@lamourhjackson Same here. We were sick a lot last year and have been much better off this year.

 

[misty0408]

@7thunders Since I’m seeing some comments here posting anecdotal evidence saying they’ve been getting sick less recently, I feel compelled to chime in with my anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

In January 2022 I had my first daughter; in April 2022 I tested positive for COVID for the first and only time since; in June of 2022 I developed psoriasis for the first time, and in 2023 I’ve had 11 colds so far.

I don’t know how related these things are, but the 11 colds this year seems pretty wild to me. I’ve never been sick so often in my life, even when I was a child. Interestingly my daughter has not been sick as often as I have - she’s only had 4 colds this year and in her entire life (and she didn’t catch COVID when I had it). She’s not in day care and while I have caught some of my colds from her, obviously not most of them. And I’m not in a position when I’m unusually exposed to illness - I’m a stay at home mom who mostly goes out to the grocery store and the park.

So it’s definitely true for me that I’m getting sick more often. It wouldn’t be my instinct to directly link it to having had COVID, especially since my frequent infections started well after my initial infection. But also I did not test for COVID during every cold I’ve had this year, and when I did I often took a rapid test on day 1 or 2 of symptoms, which I know is not the most accurate. So I could have had a second case of COVID this year without knowing it.

And all in all I wouldn’t draw many conclusions from the anecdotal evidence in Reddit comments. I’d put way way way more weight into study results.

 

[rodneyk]

@misty0408 Yes to your last sentence! You have a major confounder here, you had a kid! They are huge illness vectors, it makes sense you’re suddenly getting sick more w a kid in the house! This is why we need large studies to draw conclusions to account for confounding factors

 

[2the1whojudgesjustly]

@rodneyk Her child isn't going to daycare so the child isn't bringing home illness. Children don't just manifest germs out of thin air.

 

[rodneyk]

@2the1whojudgesjustly My child stays at home with me and still gets sick all the time. There are viruses everywhere, my ped said (as others have posted) to expect 12 colds per season for kids even those that don’t go to daycare. The person I replied to is getting sick by living in the world the same way kids do, only the kids don’t have a mature immune system. I’m just saying the reason studies are necessary is because you can never observe the individual counterfactual to know how sick they would be with/without a kid but having a kid is a huge confounding factor here you can’t just do a pre/post analysis at the individual level.

 

[mdhess]

@2the1whojudgesjustly Most people with toddlers take them places. Those places have illness. Playground, library, ymca, mall, mommy and me classes. I stay at home with my twins but we don’t literally stay at home 24/7

 

[2the1whojudgesjustly]

@mdhess You'd both be exposed to the same germs, rather than the child introducing new germs.

 

[c4ccheyenne]

@rodneyk Also, I don’t think any of us are getting the amount of sleep or the nutrition that we need after we become parents. Those two things alone can cause a significant decrease in immune function.