You probably already know that the most popular time of the year to catch a cold or come down with the flu is during the fall and winter seasons (if you want a brief rundown on the differences between a cold and the flu, you can check a list out here). However, were you aware of the fact that the flu virus actually moves, full speed ahead, right around October?
If you add to that the fact that late August thru late March/early April is when the common cold prefers to show all the way out the most, this is the perfect time to talk about what happens to your body whenever you catch a cold — oh, and to add a bit of “the more you know” to this piece, I’m going to also share what your vagina goes through whenever a cold decides to temporarily take over your body.
Why is this relevant? Well, the way I see it is, if whenever you find yourself getting sick, it seems like your vagina isn’t “at its best” either, you should know that it’s definitely not all up in your head. When your immune system is working in overdrive to get your viral infection under control, sometimes your vagina has to struggle (just a bit) to get through that.
And now that you know, for a fact, that oftentimes there really is something up with your “her” whenever you are under the weather, you can learn about what you can do to make dealing with a cold easier when it comes to your vagina — and, ultimately, you too.
What Happens to Your Body, Overall, When You Catch a Cold
GiphyIsn’t it wild that there still appears to be no cure for the common cold (that partly may be because there are over 200 different viruses that can give you a cold)? This means that if you happen to catch one, all you can really do is treat the symptoms and hope that it lasts closer to two days than two whopping weeks (which tends to be the sliding scale of how long a cold chooses to stick around).
And although I’m sure that you are very well aware of the fact that a cold brings with it things like coughing, congestion, and sometimes a fever, have you ever stopped to think about what is actually going on inside of your body when you have a cold?
From what I’ve read and researched when a cold-causing virus gets into your nasal passages/sinuses, it takes a couple of days for your immune system to get the message that something is up. Chemical messengers within your body, known as cytokines, are what put your immunity on notice. As your blood vessels start to swell up in order to fight off the virus/infection, that’s what causes congestion.
Then, as your white blood cells begin to get involved, that can lead to inflammation which sometimes results in things like a runny nose and cough. Some other things that can happen to you while you’re dealing with a cold are you may experience body aches, a sore throat, headaches, sneezing, and a fever.
What Happens to Your Vagina, Specifically, When You Catch a Cold
GiphyNow as far as what happens to your vagina while you’re dealing with a cold, the main thing that transpires is your blood vessels become wider in order to make way for more white blood cells to fight the virus. As a result, you may see an increased amount of vaginal discharge. On the flip side to this, if your cold ends up dehydrating you (which isn’t uncommon), that could result in you experiencing a noticeable level of vaginal dryness.
Also, something else to keep in mind is, that if you are stressed out a lot, that can actually make you more susceptible to catching a cold, and if stress is your “cold culprit,” that can significantly increase your chances of having a yeast infection — and both at the same time is the absolute worst.
Now, here’s where it really gets kinda wild. Although it makes no sense to take an antibiotic for a cold (because antibiotics treat bacterial infections, not viral ones; you can read more about thathere andhere), if you do end up with a yeast infection and a cold at the same time, the antibiotics could end up throwing off your vagina’s pH balance even while treating the yeast overgrowth; unfortunately, that could still lead to some level of vaginal irritation.
Oh, and as far as antihistamines and decongestants that you may be taking to treat your cold? Those typically will narrow your blood vessels, even in your genital region, which can also result in vaginal dryness. The same goes for any sedatives that you may take to make it easier to sleep more soundly while you’re healing from your cold.
It should also go on record that certain cold medications can come with side effects like rashes, redness, and itchiness — and that could include your vagina and/or vulva. Yeah, like I said, your vagina and vulva are not always or automatically exempt from the cold that you may be experiencing.
How to Soothe Your Vagina While You Have a Cold
GiphySo, even if you can’t cure your cold, is there anything that you can do to either lower the chances of your vagina experiencing all of what I just mentioned or make the symptoms far more bearable? Indeed, there is.
Consume probiotics and vitamin D.
As far as preventative measures go, something that you and your vagina need are probiotics and Vitamin D. Probiotics are dope because they help to fill your gut with the good bacteria that it needs to fight viral infections (you know, since 80 percent of your immunity is in your gut, to begin with) and vitamin D is awesome because it helps to make your immunity “activate” quicker; plus, it helps to prevent viral infections from transpiring in the first place.
As far as your vagina goes? Probiotics decrease the chances of your pH balance being thrown off (which could lead to a yeast infection) while vitamin D reduces the risk of vaginal-related infections as it also helps to decrease vaginal dryness.
Hydrate.
Since having a cold can cause you to lose fluids and electrolytes (including in your vaginal region), it’s wise to drink more water and orange juice while you have a cold. Not only will that help to replenish what has been lost, but it can also help to flush out toxins. Plus, orange juice contains a lot of vitamin C, which is an antioxidant that can help strengthen your immunity. By the way, other drinks like a turmeric latte or matcha tea can help your immune system to get to a better place as well.
Take (and apply) some flaxseed oil or grapefruit seed extract.
As far as vaginal dryness goes, something else that you can do is take some flaxseed oil as a supplement and/or apply it directly to your vulva. Not only will it provide moisture to both your insides and “outsides” without any chemicals, but there are also properties in flaxseed that help your skin retain its pH balance.
Oh, and if you gargle with some grapefruit seed extract, that can fight your viral infection up top, while if you add a bit of it to your vulva (with the help of a carrier oil), that can help to rid your vulva of any cold-related germs down below.
Use a lubricant.
If you’re the only one who is sick, it’s probably best that you try and steer clear of your partner as much as possible because colds are hella contagious. However, if you’re both on the icky side yet you can muster up the energy, sex can give you the kind of endorphin boost that will help you to feel better while orgasms can temporarily clear up your congestion (just sayin’).
That said, since oils and latex don’t exactly get along if you do have some vaginal dryness going on and flaxseed isn’t going to work for you personally, try a silicone-based lubricant — just to get you over the hump (umm, so to speak). Because even if a cold has the rest of you feeling kind of blah, at least your vagina can get a bit of a pick-me-up, right? Yeah…that’s what I’m sayin’. LOL.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured image by svetikd/Getty Images
RELATED
Ding. Ding. DING.
A life coach by the name of Thomas Leonard once said that “Clarity affords focus” and, believe you me, when it comes to dealing with other human beings, if you don’t get clear on where you stand when it comes to your interactions with them, you can very easily find yourself “focusing too much” on those who don’t deserve it and too little on those who absolutely do. And y’all, this lil’ PSA couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to what I call “casual friendships.”
Let’s dig — and for some of us, dig our way out of — what it means to have a casual friend, so that you can get clear on if you really need those in your life…and if so…why?
Article continues after the video.
It Can’t Be Said Enough: Always Remember What “Casual” Means
GiphyThere’s a reason why I decided to share two videos by mental health coach Isaiah Frizzle at the top and bottom of this article. It’s because a lot of what he shares in both of them complements a piece that I wrote for the platform last year entitled, “This Is Just What Purposeful Relationships Look Like.”
It’s the author M. Scott Peck who once said, “Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it” and please believe that the older (and hopefully more mature) you get, the more you tend to see just how valuable — and fleeting — time is; and that is what plays a huge role in motivating you want to only involve yourself with people, places, things and ideas that will honor your time — and when something is casual? In my opinion, it’s highly debatable that it’s worth much of your months, days, hours, or even too many of your minutes.
The main reason why is addressed in an article that I wrote back in the day entitled, “We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex.'” The gist? When it comes to relationships, “casual” is certainly not a favorite word of mine because I know what it means. Have mercy — why would you want to invest your time, energy, and emotions into something that is, by definition, apathetic, indifferent, careless, lacking emotional intimacy, and/or is without purpose?
I don’t know about y’all but that sounds like a complete and total crap shoot to me — especially if you are going to go so far as to consider this type of dynamic a true friendship (check out “Ever Wonder If A Friend Is Just...Not That Into You?,” “6 Signs You're About To Make A Huge Mistake In Making Them A Close Friend,” “5 Signs Of A Toxic Friendship That Is Secretly Poisoning Your Life,” “12 Friend Facts That Might Cause You To Rethink (Some Of) Your Own,” and “Less & Less Of Us Have Close Friends These Days. Why Is That?” ).
To me, when you decide to call someone “friend,” it means that they are loyal, reliable, consistent, trustworthy and willing to be there to support you to the very best of their ability — even if it’s inconvenient to do so sometimes (check out “Life Taught Me That True Friendships Are 'Inconvenient'”). How in the world can you expect that from something that has the word “casual” in it?
And you know what? That actually segues into my next point about casual friendships pretty darn well.
Ponder the Purpose “Casual Friends” Serve in Your Life
GiphyA couple of years ago, Verywell Mind published an article entitled, “How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life.” The four that it listed were acquaintances (which I actually don’t consider to be friends; check out “6 Differences Between A Close Acquaintance And An Actual Friend”), casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. After reading the piece, I think they consider casual friends to be the “pleasure” friends that I mentioned in the article, “According To Aristotle, We Need ‘Utility’, ‘Pleasure’ & ‘Good’ Friends.”
And although I certainly get that, I think my “cause for pause” is calling those people “friends” when they probably should be called something like an associate or possibly even a buddy instead. Why do I feel this way? Well, I’ve shared in other articles that I think social media has jacked up vocabulary words and their true meaning on a billion different levels.
Take “friend,” for example. Facebook had us out here calling everyone we connected to on their platform “friends” when some of them, we’ve never even spoken to before — and I personally think that influenced, affected and perhaps even infected our psyche to the point where we will call folks, both online and off, “friend” even when they haven’t earned it and/or who possibly don’t deserve it.
That said, do I think that we all could use lighthearted interactions that don’t go very deep and are filled with not much more than fun? Sure. However, if we were to move this over into a sexual thing — those types of people would probably be called a sneaky link, and there is nothing significant or substantial about ‘em. In fact, if anything pretty much automatically comes with an expiration date, sneaky links would have to be it.
And that’s kind of the point that I’m trying to make about a casual friend — so long as you know that the word “casual” is being used to describe them, while you may enjoy the people who fit that bill, they aren’t really anything that you can or even should fully rely on. Instead, take them for what they are and don’t really expect much more than that. Otherwise, you could be in for some profound levels of disappointment. And who wants that?
Final point.
How a Casual Friend Can Become a Huge Red Flag
GiphyI’m telling you, y’all gonna quit clowning Tubi. LOL. To me, the best way to describe it is it’s the Cricket of current streaming apps. What I mean by that is, back when Cricket (the cell phone service) first came out, people, like me, who used it service got incessantly clowned because it was seen as a bootleg provider. Now it’s owned by AT&T, and as someone who has rocked with them since I was in my 20s, I don’t have one regret for doing so. Cricket has always been good to me, chile.
And Tubi? Well, when you get a chance, check out CNBC’s article, “CEO at 33, Tubi’s Anjali Sud on success hacks she learned at Amazon, IAC on way to top of Fox streaming” — take note of the moves the streaming app is making and the quality of programming that is transpiring in real time.
Anyway, I find myself bringing up Tubi more and more in my content because it helps to amplify some of the points that I like to make. This time, it’s a movie that’s (currently) on there calledRight Man, Wrong Woman. If you haven’t seen it before, I don’t want to give too much of the film away. What I will say is that the main female character, she had a casual friend and then she had a close friend.
That casual friend—the one who liked to kick it all of the time—was a lot of fun; however, dealing with her came with a ton of semi-unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, the close friend? She’s what the Aristotle article (that I mentioned earlier) would call the “good friend” because she tried her best to hold her friend accountable.
And really, it shouldn’t be a shock that the casual friend turned out to be a plum trip because if someone is loads of entertainment and pleasure and yet they are indifferent towards you, they make careless decisions around you and/or they don’t really make known the purpose for you being in their life other than to pass some time — where really do you and that person have to go past drinks after work or dinner on a rooftop restaurant from time to time? And if that is all that the two of you are doing, again, why are they deserving of the word “friend”?
Hmph and don’t get me started on the lack of reciprocity that typically transpires when it comes to dealing with people like this because, while they won’t mind you spending your coins on them, taking their calls in the middle of the night or listening to all of their issues — when it comes time for them to show up for you, they very well may gaslight you into thinking that you are being dramatic, clingy or “doing the most.” Why? Well, it’s mostly because the two of you never really established what the hell the both of you are to one another.
And so, while you’re somewhere taking them seriously, they are out here seeing you casually, and as much as it might hurt to hear, that doesn’t automatically or necessarily make them a bad person. You shouldn’t expect much where no clarity is involved. After all, casual is just that: CASUAL.
____
I’m hoping that you can now see why I entitled this piece in the way that I did. It’s because a red flag is pretty much a warning, and to me, a casual friend is about as big of an oxymoron (again, to me) as casual sex is. Friends and sex are both too intimate to be seen or treated casually. Oh, but if you step out and take that risk, you could find yourself getting far more involved than the other individual ever wanted to go, because casual is how things have always been. “Friend” was simply to get you more mentally and emotionally invested. SMDH.
American columnist Walter Winchell once said, “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” A wise person once said, “One good friendship will outlive forty average loves." Former President Ulysses S. Grant once said, “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.” Does any of this sound casual to you? Yeah, me neither.
Again, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people in your life who aren’t on deep levels. I’m just saying that you might want to consider putting them into another category than friend, because what friends do for people? There ain’t nothin’ even remotely casual about it, sis. Not even a lil’ bit.
Let’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
Featured image by Shutterstock