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You wake up one morning with a stuffy nose and a sore throat. You’ve got another
cold. Did you ever wonder why the common cold is so common?
Some diseases, like mumps and measles, are once-in-a-lifetime diseases. If you come
down with these diseases, you can never get them again. That’s because your immune
system remembers the viruses that caused them. If the viruses come around again, your
immune system can fight them off before they can make you sick again.
The reason this works for mumps and measles is that the viruses are very stable. One
mumps virus looks pretty much like another mumps virus. Scientists have taken
advantage of that to make vaccines. The viruses in vaccines are killed or weakened
versions of a virus. If you’ve been vaccinated against mumps or measles, your immune
system knows what the virus looks like. You can fight off the real virus before ever
getting sick at all.
Colds are different. There are over 200 different viruses that can cause colds. That’s
nothing to sneeze at. Your immune system can remember the viruses that caused the
colds you have had, but there are plenty of other cold viruses out there to make you sick.
Fortunately most cold viruses cause nothing more serious than stuffy noses, sneezing,
sore throats, and headaches. Now blow your nose, drink plenty of fluids and go back to
bed.