Dr. Peter J. Weiss

I hope it won’t hurt my well­ness image to reveal that I was ill recently with a head cold and a touch of sinusi­tis.  Yes, I get sick too.

Nor­mally, I don’t think a lot about com­mon ill­nesses such as colds and the flu.  Many peo­ple seem to obsess over these com­mon ill­nesses, hand wash­ing, and avoid­ing germs.  Not me.  I just try to be pru­dent, with­out being obses­sive, and live a healthy lifestyle.  But as the bumper sticker says “Sick Hap­pens.“

So I was ill.  What did I do about it?  One thing I did not do was call a doc­tor.  Basi­cally I gave myself sup­port­ive care, includ­ing rest, increased fluid intake, nasal decon­ges­tants, over-the-counter pain reliev­ers and nasal irri­ga­tion.  And I recov­ered over about five days or so.  No doc­tor, no antibi­otics and vir­tu­ally no expense.

Of course some­times when you’re sick you should see a doc­tor right away.  If you have seri­ous warn­ing signs, for exam­ple dif­fi­culty breath­ing with a cold or flu, you need med­ical atten­tion to rule out a more seri­ous ill­ness such as pneu­mo­nia.  But most colds aren’t like that.

What I usu­ally do is sim­ply give myself sup­port­ive care and mon­i­tor my sit­u­a­tion closely.  If I am still get­ting worse or still have fever on the fourth day of the ill­ness, then I think about see­ing a doc­tor.

This time, my fever was low grade.  I got worse for three days, but by the fourth day I could tell that I was slightly bet­ter.  On day five I was almost well and by day six, I was back to nor­mal.

Obvi­ously you must decide for your­self when to seek med­ical atten­tion, but it’s worth devel­op­ing your own guide­lines.  Per­haps you could ask your doc­tor or the office staff for their thoughts about when to come in and when to prac­tice self-care.

Most physi­cians will tell you that most office vis­its for colds or upper res­pi­ra­tory tract infec­tions (URIs) really aren’t needed.  And as you know, I believe that in health­care often “less is more.”