The Common Cold and Flu: What’s the Difference?
This winter season, it’s important to know the difference between the common cold and the flu. Identifying the symptoms of each can help you determine when it is time to visit Access Total Care. Or when a home remedy might be enough. Let’s take a look at some key differences between these two illnesses. This way you can make an informed choice about your health.
What is the Common Cold?
The common cold is a viral infection by a virus and is one of the most frequent illnesses in humans. It’s an infection in your nose, throat, or upper airways that typically causes congestion, sneezing, sore throat, cough, body aches, and fatigue. Colds are usually milder than the flu and don’t last as long—typically about a week to 10 days. They tend to be more common in cooler months such as autumn and winter.
What is the Flu?
The flu (or influenza) is also caused by a virus but it is more serious than a cold. Symptoms of the flu are similar to those of a cold but they tend to be more severe. This can be a fever, headache, muscle aches, extreme tiredness, coughing, sore throat and congestion. These are all common symptoms of the flu. The illness usually lasts for about 1-2 weeks. Yet you may feel tired for much longer than that after recovering from it. It’s also more likely to lead to complications such as pneumonia or bronchitis. This may be the case in young children or elderly people with weaker immune systems.
How Do You Tell Them Apart?
The most important difference between the common cold and influenza is that the flu is an infection caused by a virus, while a cold is caused by bacteria. That means that antibiotics are not effective against viruses, like influenza. But it may be prescribed for bacterial infections like a cold. The flu often has more severe symptoms than a cold. It can lead to further complications such as pneumonia or bronchitis if left untreated. It is also highly contagious, spreading quickly through contact with infected people or surfaces.
Flu symptoms tend to come on suddenly and include fever, chills, body aches, headache, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and fatigue. These symptoms usually last for several days and can even linger for up to 2 weeks in some cases. Cold symptoms are usually milder than those of influenza. Yet it can still cause considerable discomfort including sneezing, coughing, congestion, runny nose and sore throat. Colds generally don’t last as long as the flu. However, they too can linger if not treated properly.
At times it can seem difficult telling whether you have a cold or the flu due to their many similarities in terms of symptomatology. However there are ways to differentiate between them. Things like duration and severity of symptoms as well as age group affected (children/elderly) help identify them. If your symptoms persist beyond seven days then it’s probably time for you seek medical attention. Go to your doctor or urgent care clinic who will advise on how best to treat your condition. This depends on whether it’s a simple case of the common cold or something more serious like influenza. Or another type of respiratory infection that requires antibiotics treatment. In any case make sure you get plenty of rest until feeling better!
