Snot. And what makes it run.

(PHOTO: SOPHIE)
For the past week I’ve been sitting mostly in one spot, drinking shiteloads of lemon honey goodness, blowing my nose, and pondering my snotty state. That’s mostly because my sinuses exploded into runny gunkyness right underneath my face , which made it hard to think about anything else.

Frankly, snot has been on my mind in that cloying way that makes me suspect it might literally be spreading through my brain.

So now that I’m coming out of the cold (I’ve moved into the dry cough to the wet cough to the annoying-everybody-in-the-office cough) I’ve become slightly philosophical about my snotty state. What happened??

Well according to the CDC when your nose and sinus get infected with germs your nose makes clear mucus in an attempt (feeble in my case) to wash away said germs. This mucus is clear. After a couple days (this would have landed me on precious Good Friday - the first long weekend of the Canadian year) your body’s immune cells fight back. Apparently this battle changes the mucus to a white or yellow color - I have no idea why. This is what the CDC writes next: “As the bacteria that live in the nose grow back, they may also be found in the mucus, which changes the mucus to a greenish color.” Which begs the question, if they’re normal happy nose bacteria then why isn’t my snot always green. Say what?

So lucky for me Dr. Rod Moser has the answer in this post from WebMD: “After sitting in a congested nasal passage all night, mucous becomes stagnant....just like a green pond.” Eeenteresting, if not absolutely foul to think about. But Dr. Moser does go on to drill home the message that green snot ‘snot bad news. And just because it’s green doesn’t mean you need to bully your Doctor into prescribing you or your child antibiotics.

Still, where does the color green come from? Well. It comes from the color wheel. A New Scientist article explains that two of the common types of human nasal bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas pyocyanea take on a a golden yellow and blue hue respectively. Mix them together and let them fester in a congested nasal passage and what do you get? Grotty green snot.  It’s practically art. And if that isn’t a truly enlightened view of your head cold, well I’ll just go jump in a lake.