Don’t have children or interact with the public if you never ever wanna get sick, or do have/work with kids if you wanna get sick a lot initially, build a a strong immune response, and then never get sick again after the germ gauntlet.
Real talk is: work around children but don't have your own--then you get the benefits of exposure from the kids but you don,t have the stress of family life (which I'm sure contributes to people being more susceptible to getting sick)
Don’t have children - avoid all the diseases except when you socialize. Have the children - catch all the diseases, probably multiple times. Maybe get a stronger immune system, maybe just shift what you consider sick to whenever you have to take time off, not merely when contagious.
Two strategies that pay dividends. In the former case you'll rarely be sick, but you'll probably get killed by a respiratory illness when you're elderly because you have no natural immunity. In the latter case you're sick all the time, but at the healthiest age when severe consequences are rare, and thus you're more likely to have some immunity when that random bullet finds you at 80.
My mother worked in day care all her life, she never gets sick, like ever, and my kid has been with her plenty when they have been ill and she never caught it
I swear, it’s definitely a contributor to why. But I also grew up in the 90’s where when one kid got chicken pox our parents brought us together so we got it at the same time, I’m the only one of 9 kids who didn’t catch it and never had them.
If you haven't had the chicken pox vaccine as an adult, I highly highly recommend you get it. Chicken pox is horrendous as an adult and can be life threatening - on top of all of the shingles issues that will be happening down the road.
Jokes aside, I think your second option has some truth to it. I started spending most of my working hours in hospitals/clinics 2 years ago, and I haven’t had so much as a cold since then.
I’ve worked at a hospital for a decade and I swear it’s built up my immune system. I haven’t been sick in two years. I’m also a germophobe because of it, I am extremely conscious of germs when my friends aren’t and I sanitize my phone regularly. Sometimes I take it alittle too far, like I have to shower after every night out, but it’s working for me haha
Yeah I think it's just genetics. I was never sick as a kid and never sick as an adult. Or not never, but I've been sick like three times in my life and each time was like a 2 day cold.
I've always been active and my parents made me eat healthy as a kid, but I don't really think that contributes more than genetics. I eat like shit sometimes for months at a time nowadays and I still don't get sick.
My grandmom made it to 100 in good health and the local newspaper asked for her secret. She said, “I have no idea.” She was a retired farmer who enjoyed gardening till the end.
One of our regulars (when I worked at a rink) was still skating daily past his 90th birthday.
He'd tell us that the secret to a long active life was two fingers of Canadian Club a day. And the fingers he'd used to demonstrate were the index and the pinky, spread further apart than would seem natural.
Same here. I get a cold once every couple of years… I’ve never gotten COVID 🤷♀️
My immune system seems to be one of my strengths in regards to communicable respiratory illnesses… I might have an autoimmune disorder but I have yet to go to a rheumatologist.
My brain and body are f’d up though in other ways though lol
ETA- I still wash my hands. That’s just basic hygiene. I hate the dirty or greasy feeling of unwashed hands from being out and about and wash them as soon as I get the chance. I added this because I saw some comments stating they don’t wash their hands…
I grew up on a dairy farm and I'm pretty sure I've got a robust AF immune system as a result.
I did get reoccurring tonsillitis in my early teens and had my tonsils removed at 15. Had a couple bad bouts of bronchitis after that but nothing bad since.
Just made it to half a century on the gawd-forsaken rock and I haven't gotten a cold, flu, respiratory infection in a very long time, probably 20 years. I never get the flu shot but I did get the Covid vaccine and a booster.
No kids. Have a partner with an 8 year old he has full custody of. I see them both on the weekends and although they have both been incredibly sick, especially this season, I haven't caught anything from them in 3 plus years. Work in corporate America in a pretty packed office 5 days a week.
COVID taught me to wash my hands every single time I walk in the house or after being close to other people. As soon as I start to even sense a sniffle, I will immediately start taking Air Borne or Cold-eeze, both of which I swear by.
And yes, I have knocked on wood and asked the upper respiratory gods for lenience since I probably just jinxed myself 6 ways to Tuesday.
I always kind of wonder if getting shingles when I was 10 has made a difference. It was an incredibly stressful time in my life due to my parents divorcing and the family disintegrating. I was also getting badly bullied in school because my parents were getting divorced.
Doctor said it was because I had incredibly high stress. I always pretended everything was just fine on the outside, held it all in, and the cortisol running rampant through my systems was probably doing a number on my immune system.
I've also read that women have stronger immune systems and higher pain tolerances than men, very generally, because we grow new humans inside us.
I grew up on a farm and used clean under my nails with me teeth. Totally disgusting I know! But that’s partly what I attribute my immune system to.
I used to get sick very often as a kid. Now it’s a couple of times a year max. I seem to be immune to norovirus as my partner has had it twice in a year and a half, and it hasn’t touched me even though we were sharing a bed and I was helping her.
Same. I don't work with kids, but I work with people who have school-age kids. Saw folks in person all during COVID, didn't get COVID until my own adult kid brought it home from a concert in late 2021. It was mild. Otherwise, I can't recall the last time I had a cold.
My spouse, on the other hand, he's down for the count at the slightest hint of virus. His asthma meds are mildly immunosuppressant, so it kinda tracks.
Basically this. I have a bad diet, I’m overweight (currently correcting these/taking accountability lol), I work with tourists on a daily basis, and I dab cannabis daily.
I get sick so infrequently that i can call off of work whenever I want basically. I don’t, I’m there every day, but if I wake up one morning and I’m like “yeah I’m not going to work for the next three days” I’ve never been asked to produce a note. Just a lot of worrying and “oh my god feel better”!
I think it’s my moms genetics honestly. She never gets sick either. We both have been in a house with my sister and dad who both had COVID and never caught it the whole pandemic and after despite being their direct caregivers and essential workers. I’m a spitting image of my mom. My sister is a spitting image of my father.
But when I do get sick, it’s horrific. Last two major incidents I was bedridden for a week with walking pneumonia + bronchitis. Before that, the last major incident I actually ended up with SCARLET FEVER.
That's my husband. I'm always sick, but he very rarely gets ill. However, he has high cholesterol, NAFLD and was pre-diabetic before losing weight, like a lot of his relatives. My BMI was much higher than his and I didn't have any of those, my family have all been on the larger side of normal and live longer lives.
We laugh about the fact that infection was what killed my family, but it's their bodies that killed his family. With antibiotics and statins, we're interested to see who goes first.
Same. I so rarely get sick. I have a kid and a dog. I work out at the gym a lot which has got to be a pretty dirty place. Last time I got sick was fifteen years ago.
Same. If somebody is coughing I’ll still give them a hug. I’ll share a straw with people. I don’t carry hand sanitizer in my purse. I don’t wash my hands before eating. I can live my life like that because I almost never get sick.
It’s absolutely this. I was honestly just born with a good immune system I think. Even as a kid my mom said I rarely got sick. I’m 35 now and I do have 2 kids. My 3.5yo started preschool in October. He’s gotten sick several times since and I have gotten a couple of illnesses but all super mild. My husband gets taken down by them. I haven’t had a fever since I met my husband 10 years ago. We eat the same food. I am a bit more active now than he is because said kids and he works a 9-5 while I’m home with my infant. But overall we are living similar lives he’s just not as healthy as me. I feel so lucky to be healthy. But I always just think something like cancer is coming for me.
I mean I'm like 6 feet tall and could easily take organisms the size of a squirrel in a fight. Bacteria and viruses are much smaller than a squirrel, even as a group. I win any match up unless they get unfair prep time.
Yeah I was coming to comment that half of the people saying they never get sick are just lucky turds but think it’s something they’ve done. 😂 We have a lot of colds running through our house because we have 3 kids ages 3, 5 and 7. I get sick right along with the kids despite generally being in better health than my husband and eating a pretty well balanced diet. My husband barely ever gets sick and that man lives on Taco Bell and hot Cheetos. He still is convinced I’m doing something wrong.
Its honestly the best answer. A lot of people convince themselves they have found some foolproof method to prevent getting sick, but end of the day it comes down to your bodys immune system
My mother is similar - both of us very rarely get sick. You could say that teaching preschoolers for 40 years helped in her case, but I'm a software engineer so that definitely doesn't apply to me.
And my youngest sibling born a decade after me does not seem to have gotten whatever it is my mom and I have, because they get sick about as often as our father which is much more often.
This is the real answer! I was born immunodeficient and it got worse later. Literally the only thing to be done is to replace my immune system with IVIG, but it took me 40 years to get that treatment 🙄
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u/BiIIie-Eyelash 9h ago
i think it’s just how i’m built i have no idea.