How Long Does It Take To Catch A Cold
How long does it take to catch a cold?
Before it is understood how long it takes to catch a cold, it is important to know that the common cold is a contagious ailment. A contagious disease is an ailment which is transmitted from the infected person to another by the medium of air or water. The host of the disease of common cold is virus and when an infected person comes in contact with a healthy person, he involuntarily transmits this virus which can cause the healthy person to get sick.
The infections to take affect or how long it takes to catch cold may vary from person to person. A person with a weak immune system is prone to get infected very easily and very fast. The symptoms of cold may also show on him soon. For a normal healthy person it usually takes three to five days. While usually it can take 9 hours totally depending on the kind of virus that caused it. The infection usually spreads when the same utensil is used for eating or drinking. Sometimes the sneeze of an infected person may cause the germs to infect other people, hence using a napkin or a hand-kerchief while sneezing or coughing is to be strictly followed for as long as it takes to catch cold.
There are more than 200 different types of viruses that can cause common cold. Concerning how long it takes to catch cold, for each Virus the duration of the cold may vary. While the period of getting may be short but the time period that would make you ill may last longer if the medications are ignored. The common symptoms of Cold are Coughing, sneezing, fever, head-ache and runny nose.
The whole initiation of this process of catching cold starts with the germs or viruses gets attached to the throat or nose. As soon as this happens the immune system of the body releases white blood cells to the infected area to attack these viruses. The initial attack of the white blood cells fails almost always which causes the body to send in more troops to fight the germs. This causes a lot of mucus to be formed and due to the fact that most of the energy of the body is directed towards fighting the cold the rest of the body feels tired and weak. The next thing you will have to worry about is not ‘how long does it take to catch a cold’ but how long will the cold last.
No matter how long it takes to catch cold, it is very important that during the flu season or when the season changes proper hygiene is maintained. People usually get sick due to the unhygienic habits. Though it is impossible to evade common cold even after following strict sanitary regime and if you happen to catch a cold it is very important that proper medication is taken with an excess intake of Vitamin C. Vitamin C may not cure you instantly off the cold, but it may reduce the days of sickness.
