# Same virus causing different symptoms in different people?



## ameliabedelia (Sep 24, 2002)

We are going through a round of colds in our family, and I seem to have noticed a pattrern among the four of us. We all seem to get colds at the same time, however we also all tend to have different symptoms. I generally only get runny, stuffy nose with congestion and sinus pain. DD1 gets runny nose congestion and coughing. Dh gets sore throat and slight stuffiness. DD2 just gets a runny nose and maybe slight congestion (although she bypassed this whole recent cold and has remained healthy..I assume to due to all the antibodies she gets in breastmilk).

We all have these symptoms at around the same time..so I would assume they are caused by the same cold virus which we pass around...but only dd1 gets coughing and only dh gets a sore throat and I seem to get the worst congestion and sinus pain. Anyone know why that is?

This is a repeating pattern..the same thing happened at our last cold (around Christmas) and then the one before that in Oct..and previously. It just seems weird. Anyone know anything about the causes of different symptoms in different people?


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## CarrieMF (Mar 7, 2004)

The virus is going to attack the weakest points of a body and that varies for each person.


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## Gitti (Dec 20, 2003)

That shows you that every person is an individual and affected differently. We each have our strengths and we each have our weaknesses.

Like Pasteur said: It's not the Germ but the terrain.

In our family when dh gets a cold it settles in his sinus. In me it settles in my chest.

So, it's the same germ but different parts of the each body that are affected.


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## Meiri (Aug 31, 2002)

We've had this sort of thing happen too. The other "pattern" we've experienced is to get only one symptom at a time. When one symptom goes away, another takes its place until the bug runs its course in about a week's time.


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