Thursday, April 20, 2006

It's A Party In My Sinuses...

... and you're not invited, because there's no freaking room in them. Exam in t-minus-ten hours and this is how the universe chooses to get its kicks?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take some Reactin for Sinus- it's amazing stuff. But try it a 1/2 pill at a time maybe-- I find it's too strong to take a whole one.
Isn't this an interesting note! But your mommy is concerned (and also sinus-y and sympathetic).

Anonymous said...

Jessica!

You don't understand how much I love viruses! I love them so much that I didn't even know it was play offs until yesterday and I was like "Why are there all these people in Oilers jerseys?"

Well technically I'd guess that you're stressed and so your release of corticotrophins which basically interfere with interferons (twisted!) and interleukin-6 and therefore you probably are getting sick. Right now you have resident neutrophils and marcrophages waiting to engulf cellular debris and present them on MHC class II to to T helper cells, and at the same time there are virally infected cells (I'd guess Rhinovirus or Cornavirus) that are actually synthesizing virus proteins and therefore preseting them on MHC class I to CD8+ T cells which will then trigger a cytotoxic cellular response. Macrophages are currently releasing alpha-interferon and Interlukin-1 and interleukin-6. They induce the inflamatory response, congested sinuses, swollen lymph nodes, headache and fever.

Together they will probably eliminate the virus from your body, or else you will die.

Clearly I need to get a life.

Hope you're feeling OK. The one problem with being in the infectious disease classes is that I'm pretty sure I'm getting some of them such as polio and SARS.

Love, Becca