Can you live without an immune system? A girl I know says she has no immune system and that's why she is always sick. Is this possible?
1 Answer
No - but I think we're dealing here with the collision between a turn of phrase and medical fact.
Explanation:
I think we're dealing here with the collision between a turn of phrase and medical fact.
Have you ever said "I got no sleep last night" when what you really mean is you slept really poorly and feel like you didn't sleep at all? We have the same situation here.
Ok - so the person who is saying that they have no Immune System is also saying she's always sick. I'll assume that by "always sick" that she may be referring to runny noses, fevers, puffy eyes, coughing, and the like - all signs of an active Immune System. And so what may be going on is not that her Immune System is absent, but perhaps instead it's ineffective, in that it can't seem to rid the body of whatever germ or toxin is creating the frequent illnesses.
To make matters more complicated, the body of someone who is constantly fighting off illnesses will have a lot of energy dedicated to the Immune System and less dedicated to the speech centres of the brain where differentiating between "I have no Immune System" and "It feels like I have no Immune System" becomes harder and less important to that person.
There are people who suffer from conditions where the Immune System is severely compromised or even, for all practical purposes, nonexistent. For those people, for whom a common cold can be a life-threatening illness, they need to live in clean rooms where the threat of illness is greatly reduced.
