Contents:
- Medical Video: 9 Flu Hacks That'll Make Your Life Better
- How can someone get cold?
- What happens if we drink cold water or ice during the flu?
Medical Video: 9 Flu Hacks That'll Make Your Life Better
Flu and cold drinks are two things that cannot be separated. Indonesian people assume that ice and flu are always related to a causal relationship. Simply put, many people think that ice is the cause of the flu and often allegedly makes the flu worse if you are desperate to drink ice water when you're sick. But is that correct? Does drinking cold water or ice when the flu makes your flu worse?
How can someone get cold?
Influenza or commonly known as flu, is one type of respiratory tract infection caused by a virus, from the type of ribonucleic acid or RNA virus. Common symptoms of this disease are usually high body temperature, fever, body feels cold, pain in the throat, muscle aches, headache, usually accompanied by coughing, fatigue and discomfort. But for mild cases of flu, the most common symptoms are coughing and fever.
Transmission of influenza viruses is usually through the transfer of viruses from flu patients to others, this can be through the air. Patients who cough or sneeze make the surrounding air contain influenza viruses, and if inhaled by others it will be contagious. In addition, transmission can also be through saliva, snot, dirt that is touched by our hands and causes the virus to be inhaled, and also from the blood.
Sometimes you are not aware of being infected with this influenza virus, because this is related to a person's immune system. If your immune system is strong, you will only feel the symptoms of mild flu. But it does not rule out the possibility, you do not pass the flu to people around you. Someone whose immune system is weak will easily catch the flu, especially children.
What happens if we drink cold water or ice during the flu?
There are no studies to date that have found a link between ice and flu, because the only cause of flu is a virus. This is very related to the resistance of a person's body that is different, so that there are easily infected and some are not infected.
If drinking cold water or ice causes you to get a cold or make your flu worse, the cause can be two things: first due to allergies, and the second is related to your own immune system.
Physiologically there are known terms of vasoconstriction and vasodilation. Vasoconstriction is a reduction in blood vessels, and vasodilation is an enlargement of blood vessels.
The cause of vasoconstriction is called a vasoconstrictor. Cold conditions including cold water or ice are one of the vasoconstrictors. The diameter of the blood vessels will shrink so that it inhibits the backflow of blood. When this vasoconstriction occurs, there will be a local damming of the blood causing a condition called congestion or damming.
If the nasal cavity is congested, then the mucosa or mucous lining of the nose will enlarge and produce more secretions or fluids, and usually you will experience a cold so the flow of breath feels blocked. If the mucosa in the airway wall experiences the same thing then of course a similar process will occur. Fluid produced in the airway wall will cause local stimulation and produce a cough reflex.
But this situation is not necessarily experienced by everyone because as mentioned before, each individual has a different sensitivity and endurance. If the body's resistance is good, then the body's protection mechanism will occur automatically.
Drinking cold water or ice when the flu is not proven to make your flu worse. However, make sure your personal hygiene and containers used to drink cold water or ice are free from the viruses that cause influenza.
