If our immune system works best when sleeping, would we get over illnesses faster if we took sleeping pills and slept for three days straight rather than taking it medications? Assuming you stayed hydrated, what would be the downside to “sleep therapy?” It would even slow the spread of illnesses if people just slept for days when they started feeling ill. What is the upside to medicating (medications ranging from cold medicines and fever reducers to antibiotics)?
In: Biology
To start, every medication has its own risks and side effects. With many medications used for sedation, there is a very real risk of slowing breathing to a dangerous (potentially deadly) level, especially if you’re using them in combination with anything else that has similar effects (alcohol, pain meds like Norco or Oxy, or even antihistamines). Besides the risks with the medications, being immobile for long stretches of time causes a lot of other problems in every system of the body. The body doesn’t just shut down while you sleep. Bedsores (known as pressure injuries to medical staff) can develop in hours if people aren’t moving, which can take a long time to heal and may go down to bone or muscle if untreated too long. Muscles lose strength and bones lose calcium, so you get weaker physically even from 1-2 days of strict bedrest, while joints can become stiff and unmovable if not being used. If you’re not getting up to pee or poop, you’re likely to develop bladder infections or skin breakdown from urine or stool being left on skin. If you’re not sitting up, your lungs don’t have room to inflate very well, which can lead to fluid building up or areas collapsing, even to pneumonia.
Most over-the-counter cold medicines only treat the symptoms and mainly help with comfort, so you can function better. But coughs can be very tiring if they continue for a long time, and fevers can be dangerous if too high or too long. Antibiotics are only appropriate for certain kinds of illnesses (bacterial infections, not viruses or allergies), but they help by getting rid of the cause. If you don’t use the antibiotics when they’re prescribed, the bacteria can grow faster than your immune system can handle, causing systemwide infection or sepsis, even death.
Sleep gives the body time to recover and rebuild, and it is necessary for good health in everyone, but it is not a cure-all. By sleeping solidly for the several days it’d take to get over a cold, you’re putting yourself at risk for a lot of complications and a longer recovery process.
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