Toothbrushes should be clean: After all, their whole purpose is to scrub all the germs out of your mouth. But as it turns out, a dirty toothbrush could make you sick. “Bathrooms are moist and steamy: the conditions that bacteria love,” says Carol Wooden, a dental surgeon and spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry. Research from the University of Birmingham School of Dentistry in the...
Sore throat. Stuffy nose. Wheezing cough. When you’re sick with a cold or flu, all you want to do is crawl into bed and sleep for a week or two. But your pesky symptoms make it impossible to rest easy. When bedtime finally rolls around, you actually feel worse than you did during the day. “When you have a cold or the flu, congestion worsens at night,” says Dr. Neil Schachter, medical director...
The term “hay fever” brings to mind pollen and ragweed allergies, but mold can be the sneaky culprit behind summer sneezing, sniffling and itchy eyes. “Many allergy sufferers assume their symptoms are caused by pollen, when they’re actually allergic to mold,” says Dr. James L. Sublett, section chief of the pediatric allergy department at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, in...
Are you concerned when you hear your baby wheezing? You’re not alone. “Wheezing is very common in infants,” says Dr. Stanley J. Szefler, a pediatrician and the head of pediatric clinical pharmacology at National Jewish Health in Denver. “Almost one in three children has a wheezing episode at some time in early childhood.” The good news: A new study published in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology...
Stress has become a way of life in our 24-7 world — and with the holidays at our heels, it might seem like you’ll never get to relax again. Fortunately, there’s some good news: “Contrary to the widespread notion that stress is necessarily bad, short-term stressors enhance immune function and help the immune system respond more rapidly and effectively,” says Firdaus Dhabhar, a physician...
When your child wakes up coughing or complaining of an earache, it’s tough to know what to do. And many common ailments — from asthma to croup — worsen in the wee hours. Lying down plays a role in most colds and sinus symptoms “because it causes secretions to drain into the throat and may obstruct drainage happening during the day,” says Dr. Michael Steiner, pediatrician and director...
