It is that time of year the time when everyone around you seems to be sick with something. The cold, the flu, upper respiratory problems and even allergies abound. When you don’t feel good, you just want to get some rest so you can feel better, but before you can treat a cold, you need to make sure you even have the cold. If you are sneezing and coughing, you may wonder, is it a cold, or something else?
There are many ways that you can tell the difference between the common cold and the flu, which is usually more serious. When you have the flu, you want to make sure that you can have an accurate diagnosis so that you can treat it right away. The differences between the two illnesses can be very similar. However, with flu symptoms, you will usually have a fever, muscle aches, a dry cough, and you will feel very tired. With cold symptoms will probably be less severe. You may experience some body aches, and tiredness and if you are coughing, you will be producing mucus. A cold will be characterized by a stuffy or a runny nose, as well. In addition, you can often tell the difference between a cold in the flu by the onset of the symptoms. Many times cold symptoms come on gradually. One day you may have a stuffy nose. The next day, you may cough. But with the flu, the symptoms come on rapidly– within three to six hours of each other.
Another way that you can tell whether or not you have a cold or the flu is whether or not you have a sore throat. The flu is almost never accompanied with a sore throat. However, it is very common to have a sore throat when you have the common cold. On the other hand, many flu patients report a mild to severe headache during the worst hours of the flu. It is uncommon to have a headache is a common cold.