How does the common cold work?

We've all had a cold at one point or another; it entails an uncomfortable cocktail of symptoms like sneezing, coughing and a runny nose. But why do we get colds? How do they work? Find out in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuffworks dot Com where
smart Happens him Marshall Brain. When someone says I have
a cold, what does he mean? What he means is
there's something inside my body that's causing me to have

(00:24):
a set of symptoms that we call a cold. The
set of symptoms normally includes things like a running nose, sneezing, coughing,
sometimes chills, and a headache. It doesn't include a fever. Normally,
if there's a fever, we call it the flu. There
are many different viruses that can cause cold symptoms, but

(00:44):
about half the time the cold is caused by a
class of virus is called rhinoviruses. The rhinovirus gets into
the cells lining your nose and it starts reproducing. It
arrives from other people. It's not cold weather that causes
a cold, but the fact that cold weather causes people
to congregate together indoors, and that makes transmission of the

(01:06):
virus easier. The virus generally moves from someone else's hands
to your hands through something like a door knob, and
from your hands into your nose or eyes. Your body
reacts to the presence of the rhinovirus with its immune system.
In the case of a cold, the immune system opens
up blood vessels inside your nose through inflammation, and it

(01:28):
also increases mucus. These two processes give you the running
nose and the stuffy feeling. The irritation caused by the
virus and all the fluid causes sneezing. If the virus
makes it into the cells lining the lungs, then they
start producing fluid and mucus as well, and that produces
the cough. As the immune system gears up over several

(01:50):
days and fights the virus, the mucous thickens and it
changes color with dead cells a form of pus really yuck.
And event actually the immune system eliminates the virus completely
and your well again. The whole healing process takes seven
to ten days. Do you have any ideas or suggestions
for this podcast? If so, please send me an email

(02:13):
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