I used to get sick all the time! I'd be sick longer than anyone else. Sometimes as long as a month with back to back colds.

I've been sick twice in the last 4 years, once lasted a day, another lasted 3 days and I needed antibiotics.

Of course I lead a much healthier life since I've been diagnosed. I normally attributed being sick less to that but you bring up a good point. (Especially based on the responses in this thread)

I've noticed the same thing. Don't think I've had the flu or a bad cold since I was diagnosed with MS 9 years ago.

Yup. I skip most colds that go around. The last round hit my parents and my son and my coworkers, but not me.

I always had atleast 1 cold/flu every winter and very bad seasonal allergies in the spring before my diagnosis.

After I got sick with MS I have had only 1 cold in 7 years and no flu PLUS no seasonal allergies. My immune system must be too busy doing other things....like attacking my brain....

I consider it one of the very few 'positive' effects of having MS

Thats kind of what I was thinking Pickle06, our immune systems are too busy attacking our brains.

Do you think that if this is the case then maybe we who don't get sick may have MS worse than the ones who do get sick?

Maybe we go from RRMS to Progressive faster and harder than others? Now I wonder if anyone has done any studies on this. Or maybe it's just us MS'ers that notice this?

I get colds very seldom, and if I do, I'm usually over it in a few days. However, I've become really OCD about hand-washing and so on (as if I needed another OCD manifestation, LOL!) in the winter, so that my hands get cracked from washing them so much. Several years back, when I was working as a cashier, I got 4 or 5 colds a winter, even tho' I kept my hands really clean - I think maybe 'cause I was handling money a lot, and people coughed in my face all day (blechhh!). My MS was really active during that time, but maybe my crazy immune system was so busy attacking myelin (as well as my joints and lungs) that it didn't have time to bother with mere germs. A system gone insane!

no I don't get colds anymore. I take EFFEOXOR

i've heard before...people that get colds are healthier than those that don't.

i've worried about that a long time. used to catch everything that came down the pike. quit about 15 years ago. have had some cronic sinus infections, but those are down to one a year in the last 6 years....

my sis is sick all the time, that is why i remembered reading about it.

Yea...I am 41 years old and was NEVER sick growing up....I did have shingles when I was about 10...which is interesting...but...never sick. As I got older in my 30's I would always get sick around Thanksgiving. Everyone just knew that I would be sick at Thanksgiving - which now I wonder if it was a replapse. But yea...the only doctor I ever saw in my life (besides child bearing) was the doctor for my MS>....now I really kinda regret that I ever went. It is hard to get into the doctor thing when I never went....I think you are on to something here.

FUNNY NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, I HARDLY EVER GET COLDS EITHER, RIGHT NOW MY SON HAS A COLD, MY MOM HAS SWOLLEN GLANDS AND SISTER HAS A COLD, I HAVE NOT CAUGHT ANYTHING, KNOCK ON WOOD.

HOLY CANNOLI!

I used to NEVER get sick, but, since being diagnosed in June, I feel like I've been sick ever since. I had pneumonia 3 weeks ago, currently have a cold and feeling like crap! I worked in the education for field for almost 10 years and feel that I got immune from being sick while working and being around all those germs. But, now that I'm no longer in the field, that may be one of the reasons why I'm getting a lot. It may be the MS as well...who knows?! MS is a mysterious disease!

Before my dx I'd get 1 bad cold a year. I've been on betaseron twice now, whenever I am on it I feel immune to colds and flu, didn't get either. When I was on copaxone I did get a little cold. Now I'm on nothing, waiting to start tysabri and i do notice a little sniffle...

So far this year my son had mono...my husband had strep....I got nothing...oh except for the joy of taking care of them.

I had the flu last year...first time ever. But I don't get colds or nothing. So yeah I have MS but not the common cold.

I can count on one hand how many bad colds I've had in the last 6 or 7 years.

I did get the flu last October for the first time in EONS...that sucked.

I used to think I had so many colds and ear infections and sinus issues growing up, maybe I'd become immune to all the different strains...LOL!!!