If you have a cold, should you stay home?

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Yesterday I was at class, and the guy next to me kept sniffing and nearly drove me crazy. I figured he had allergies, or something. Nope. Within eight hours, I get the first signs of a cold. (Yes, I can detect it that early. I'm hypersensitive. I've still only got a sore throat, but I know what a cold feels like when I have one. Apparently, Wikipedia says that the virus starts replicating 2-6 hours after exposure; so I guess by eight hours, there's enough there for me to detect the damage.)

So today, and probably for the next few days, I'll stay home, do my homework at my own desk, and e-mail my profs if I have any trouble. They're pretty nice about answering e-mail, and nobody this quarter is taking points off for not attending classes.

I stay home when I have a cold for two reasons: One, I don't want to spread it around, because it's just a total dick move to go walking around coughing and spreading germs like some kind of annoying but non-deadly Typhoid Mary. And two, being sick--even if it's just a cold--makes my stress threshold go way down. Things that wouldn't normally bug me are suddenly major annoyances, and things that would just be annoying can trigger a shutdown and lose me the whole day.

But I know most people don't stay home when they have colds. After all, a cold doesn't make you exhausted enough to stay in bed, the way the flu does. And most NTs seem to be able to function normally or close to normally despite a cold. (That's probably why the cold virus is the most successful virus ever. It uses the highly effective strategy of infecting a carrier in a highly contagious way without causing enough damage to cause the carrier to need to rest much more than usual.)

Is it a rational decision to stay at home and do my work here rather than going to class and spreading this cold? Or am I just using this as an excuse to be lazy? Should people routinely stay home when they have colds, just for decency's sake, to avoid spreading the germs to others? Or would that be useless, because most people don't know they've been infected until 24 or even 48 hours after exposure, and by then they've already spread it?

I think people should stay home if they can, especially throughout the first 2 or 3 days of having the virus. In the summer maybe they can get away with coming out with the virus without giving it to anyone, because I've had colds in the summer before and never spread it to anyone, and you can go out and get more fresh air in the summer. But in the winter, when people are more likely to be cooped up indoors with all the windows shut, and the cold air makes you feel like you want to cough more, and it hurts your throat more.

I don't feel any differently to any NT when I have a cold. Some people (like my brother) get a little cold and act like they're dying, and others get a cold and can try to ignore the cold and carry on with the day. I'm one of those people. Even if I'm really ill (which I'm not usually because I have a strong immune system), I still get out of bed in the morning and do things, maybe have rests in between, and have an early night.

I think people should stay well away when they have sick bugs (which people generally do). But my mum said that somebody came into work once, already knowing she had a sick bug, and just kept getting up to be sick in the toilet every half hour or so, and everybody kicked up because not many people like being sick. But this woman said that she had to come in because she couldn't afford to have time off (they don't get sick pay).

Yes, I can really understand people coming in when they're sick because they can't afford not to work. You can't hate them for that. You sure can get annoyed with their employers (or, more likely, upper management) for not giving them enough sick days to stay at home. It's especially bad if they work in customer service or in food service jobs. That's a great way to get an entire town sick.

And there are people for whom colds actually are dangerous. My grandfather, who is if I remember correctly 87 years old, can get a cold and not shake it off for months. A cold could actually weaken him considerably. Same goes for very young children; a two-week-old infant with a cold can have real trouble nursing because his/her nose will get stuffed up and s/he won't be able to breathe. Young babies won't naturally breathe through their mouths, like adults can. Not to mention the poor parents having to stay up nights with a miserable baby...

The decent thing to do is stay home. However, the attitude of the USA is to drag yourself to work and be as productive as possible, even if you are coughing up a lung.

If possible stay home, especially if you work with children, the ill or elderly. But if you can't, just cough and sneeze away from people and practice good hygiene.

I don't stay at home when I have the hots, so why should I stay at home when I have a cold?

No one is likely to get close enough to get anything from me either way...

With allergies I try to goto work unless I really feel bad---then I do stay home.

With a cold---it is contagious. I will usually stay home the first day. The important thing to consider is if you have a fever. If you have a fever, yes, you should stay home.

I am a school teacher and that is a policy we follow. In fact, students are not supposed to return to school until 24 hours after their fever has subsided. If you have an illness that requires medication in the form of antibiotics (where the illness is contagious), the appropriate thing to do is stay home until you have been on the antibiotic for 24 hours.

I hope this helps. And I hope you feel better.

I don't stay home when I have a cold. Mom sent me to school when I had a really bad one when I was eight. Lot of people don't stay home with a cold so I learned a cold is nothing and not sick enough to stay home. Only time I ever stayed home with a cold was when it gave me a very bad headache and my eyes hurt when I stood. That was the worse cold ever I had and that is definitely worthy to stay home.

Staying home with a cold, I should stay home if I sneeze once or have a sore throat or if my nose is a little runny. That looks like to me an excuse to not go to work just so I be on the computer. A good worker goes to work and only calls in sick when they have a fever or are throwing up or have a sinus infection or a strep throat or have the runs where they keep having diarrhea and they have to keep running for the bathroom because it's that bad. Besides not all bosses find it accepting for their workers to stay at home when they have a cold because it's not severe enough. But if they work around food, I can understand why they would call in sick for it or want their workers to. Heck even my teachers have gone to school with a cold and my choir teacher would go and have laryngitis so her voice be quiet.

Colds do nothing for me either, even when I had a really bad one at age eight, it still did nothing except I spent half of my time blowing my nose because I hated how stuffed up it was and having all that snot in there. But luckily I enjoyed doing that because blowing noses was one of my fixations then. But I hated the stuffy nose.

It sounds reasonable to stay home so you don't get others sick but others may view it as you being lazy and think that is your excuse for not wanting to go in because to most people, a cold is nothing because it doesn't effect them. So even if others catch it, it's not big deal because it doesn't effect them. It has to be bad for it to effect them like it did for me a few years ago. Heck even I have been one of those people to view someone as being lazy for not going in because of a slight cold and their excuse is they don't want to spread it. To me a cold is nothing because it doesn't effect me.

The only problem with taking time off, in an attempt to avoid infecting people, is that you'd have to stay at home for up to 2 weeks (it's not unusual for a cold to last that long, even in a healthy person). You can be contagious for the duration of the cold, not just the first couple of days, so you'd really need to stay away until you're better, otherwise your good intentions would be pointless. I'm not sure there are any employers out there who would approve of 2 weeks off. But, if you're feeling really bad, of course you should feel entitled to stay at home, you'd get very little done at work anyway, feeling like that.

Flu is a whole different ballgame. I caught it 3 times, when I worked in a building, which has been described as having 'sick building syndrome'. I've never had it before or since and I really don't want to get it again. If you have flu, there's no way you could even think about going to work, you'd be lucky to make it to your front door. There's no decision to be made with that one.

I have a cold just now and have been coughing for 6 days now. I'm actually dreading the end as that's when my asthma is likely to kick in. This time last year, I was ill for 6 weeks.

Unless I'm throwing up, nothing prevents me from going to school. I don't care if I make everyone else sick. If my school had a more lenient late work policy, I might consider it. Luckily, I don't usually get sick more than 2-3 times a year.

If you practice good hygeine, then your chances of giving someone your cold or virus, or getting one can be greatly reduced. If you are sick, and you must go to school or work, always use tissues when you sneeze, cough, or blow your nose. And use hand sanitizer afterward, anything that you touch can pass on the virus to someone else. You can wear a mask when you are sick, and this will stop you from giving your virus to someone else. It can be pretty uncomfortable to wear a mask for 10 hours (that's how long my shift is at work) but if you can't afford to miss work or school, this is an option.

If someone around you is sick, try not to sit near them. Always carry hand sanitizer with you at school or work. Anytime you touch a desk, door handle, whatever, you could be picking up a virus from someone else. Wash your hands regularly, and also sanitize things like your vehicle doors, steering wheel, and handles and doornobs in your house. I always wash or sanitize my hands as soon as I get home, and I make my Dad do the same. I also sanitize the remote controls, and anything he might have touched before I gave him a hand sanitizer wipe. He complains about it, but I then ask him if his hands are clean, and he says no.

This is a bit militant on my part, but guess what? I work in a Hospital, and I hardly ever get sick. You can't stop someone from sneezing on you (nobody I work with would consider doing anything that stupid around me), but there a lot of things you can to do to avoid getting sick. I can't afford to get sick, and if I did, I would have to work. And there are lots of people at my work in the same boat. But by practicing extreme good hygeine, I do not catch viruses from other people. I NEVER let anyone use my phone, my desk, or my computer. If they do, then I immediately sanitize it, and wash my hands. I do not have OCD, I just work in a Hospital, so I am very aware of the origin of pathogens.

One more thing, the "Flu", or Influenza, is a totally different story. You will know if you have the Flu, because you will feel so bad you can barely get out of bed. You should not work or go to school if you have the flu. You cannot catch the Flu from working in a building. This doesn't mean that working in certain buildings cannot make you very ill, but unless you caught it from a person, it's not Influenza. Also, sometimes people will call stomach viruses the "Flu". This is not Influenza.

If people opt to go about their daily business with a cold, the least they could do is take some cold medicine first. That way there would be less coughing and runny noses therefore less spreading. The first thing I do when I have a cold is run to the drug store for a box of Tylenol Cold.

I always stay home when I have a cold, but then again I seem to suffer from the female equivelant of 'man' flu every time I catch one! I also have quite a lot of problems with my stomach and gut (good old fashioned IBS) so I often get an upset stomach when I have a cold. This makes me even more reluctant to go out.

I think (aside from over dramatic people like myself) that the only people who should REALLY avoid going to work are those who work with vulnerable people like the elderly, sick or very young babies. Also, if you have or work with gerbils, NEVER touch them if you have either a cold or flu because it can infect them too! It does frustrate me though if someone brings a cold in to work or (worse) somewhere like a supermarket becuase my mum has Menieres disease which usually is dormant but a cold can set it off. I was very upset with my aunt and uncle for coming to a Christmas party with a bad cold fully knowing how it could affect my Mum.

I have always had misophobia though so I might just be a little bit too sensitive!

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I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )