Why does your body make your sinuses overproduced nasal mucus when you have a cold?

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A cold virus in your blood doesn’t seem to have much to do with your sinuses. How does overproduction of nasal mucus (and the ensuing sneezing, runny nose and cough) help the body fight off the virus?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Cold viruses mainly live in your upper respiratory tissues. That is, your nose and throat. Producing snot helps your body to physically trap the virus and flush it out.

While some amount of virus will circulate in your blood, that amount will be relatively small, as cold viruses aren’t adapted for that. They are adapted for infecting the tissues of your nose and throat. Immune cells will attack viruses in the blood too, but that’s not where the main battle is happening, so to speak. Your nose and throat are the main battlefields, and therefore they are where you will observe most of the effects, too (dead bodies, weapons fire, etc.).

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