Today I woke up feeling worse than yesterday. I started to feel sick almost a week ago, and even after taking care of myself the best I can with medicine and rest, I feel weaker each coming day. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s noticeable. This experience is not original. In the past if I catch something, it tends to get progressively worse until it gets better.
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Imagine you are Ukraine and the virus is Russia.
Day 1 Russia is gathering their troops and you do not really notice it
Day 2 you notice it and start to prepare your army while Russia is destroying your body (both take a toll on your body)
Day 3 Russia is continuing and you start your counteroffense. Which both take a toll on your body.
Day x the fight continues
Last day of sickness Russia or Ukraine has been defeated
A large part of what makes you feel poorly when ill is the cells of your own immune system, and various chemicals they release to co-ordinate. These chemicals are called cytokines and include a wide variety of substances, which amongst others, cause fever, stimulate mucus production, causing swelling and inflammation.
The immune system functions in a cascading manner, slow at first, and then increasing in activity rapidly. This cascade begins when the body successfully identifies an invading pathogen that is present in numbers large enough to be termed an infection. When immune activity reaches it peak, is when you feel the worst. At this stage, the active infection will also be contributing towards feeling like a dog, in a case dependent manner.
Your immune system is a military force. When it detects an enemy, they deploy to the site to fight it. To help them get to the site, they expand the roads, often at the cost of surrounding structures. This is inflammation or swelling.
Many illnesses hide themselves in and among healthy cells. Therefore, in the first stages of the battle, your immune system will cause a lot of damage to healthy cells just to target the illnesses hiding among them.
Your immume system can also choose to roast the illness with fever or flood the region (runny nose). Both of these make you feel worse.
When they encounter more enemies, they call reinforcements, increasing the immune response and making you feel worse with time.
At the same time, the soldiers on the front line are gathering information about the enemy to special operatives in your immune system. These operatives develop an identifier (antibody) that can be spread on the battlefield to only stick to the enemies. Once this is done, the immune system can directly target enemies rather than harm healthy cells. At this stage, the illness gets quickly cleaned up and you rapidly feel better.
The immune system then remembers the enemy for some time (immunity) so further attacks from the same illness are rapidly defeated.
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