Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Chickentrap t1_isuqlze wrote

Reply to comment by heiferly in If I am just recovered from a typical cold (5 days long / 2 days off work), am I now more immune to all infections for a period of time, or less? by [deleted]

I didn't realise exposure was effective in adults. I always assumed it to be mostly beneficial to children to develop a robust immune system.

And that's ridiculous, but was probably dramatised for tv purposes. I don't think any credible therapist would sanction that method.

4

murgatroid1 t1_isut2l6 wrote

Exposure Therapy is a psychological treatment for anxiety disorders and isn't the same as deliberate exposure to pathogens in order to trigger an immune response, like you're talking about with children. And *that* sort of exposure does work with adults to some extent (like in vaccines), but it happens more in childhood because that's when everything is new to the immunue system.

5

regular_modern_girl t1_isvq55f wrote

Yeah it seems that a number of people thought it would be a good idea to do that sort of “exposure therapy” with covid early in the pandemic, and it…generally didn’t work out so well for a lot of them.

1

heiferly t1_isuxlab wrote

What murgatroid said. It's a behavioral-based psychological treatment, related to cognitive behavioral therapy, applied behavior analysis, etc. It's used to treat OCD or specific phobias (which I think they changed in the latest DSM but I'm old and out of school and that's not my field of practice and I'm gross with covid fever so no googling, sorry).

Basically you get exposed to things that cause you mild anxiety and slowly increase until you acclimatize to your biggest anxieties; in recent years research has shown pairing this with beta blockers can be highly effective and faster.

2