I also have an overactive immune system, and just recently was diagnosed with RA. My doctor told me the same thing, so maybe it's a truism that allergies have a protective effect against some malignancies. It WOULD be nice to have some benefit from an otherwise miserable set of reactions.
I do think, since I carry an epipen in case of life-threatening reaction, that I will probably not survive, if I get Avian Flu. I take the elderberry tonic to lower the amount of viable virus. There is some research to indicate that lower virus exposure indicates how the person will fare--in other words, get a small dose of virus from passing a stranger in a crowd, get a milder case. Get a large dose say from a spouse or child, get a serious case.
This virus' action in humans may have been studied in the far east very thoroughly, but we here in the west have a lot of unanswered questions.
No one knows how many mild cases there have been, because there has been no screening research published, to my knowledge.
During the SARS epidemic, cytokine storm was one of the life-threatening complications. Prednisone was tried, but did not improve survival rates, if I recall correctly. Also, it has been tried with H5N1 in some fatal cases in the far east as well.
Thank you for your reply. I felt sure that would be the answer to my Avian Flu question.
I don't know what RA is, could you enlighten me?