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Common cold and flu Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention
Overview
Table of Contents
Common cold and flu can be defined as nothing but a normal viral infection where your body has normal ache, sore throat, cough, viral fever, and casual infection that basically affects your nose and throat, lungs or mouth as cold and flu affects the upper respiratory system of your body.
A person who does not forget to wash his/her hands, stay hydrated, eat healthily, exercise regularly, having proper sleep can easily prevent diseases and viral infections to affect them. Symptoms are many and may vary with the type of viral infection you are affected by. Things need not to be taken too seriously and the check-up is generally self-diagnosed.
The majority of people get infected by cold or flu once a year. There are more than 200 types of viral infections seasonally among which any of them can affect you. Moreover, the complications don’t arise often and serious issues are rarely caused.
How to know if you have cold or flu ?
The general mild symptoms you can find in a person who is affected by common cold and flu can be –
• Fever
• Rhinorrhoea
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Body ache
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Exhaustion
• Loss of appetite
• Cough and sneeze with phlegm
• Sweats and chills
• Watery and dead eyes
• Chest congestion
• Sore throat
• Pressurised sinus
• Hoarse voice
• Joint pain
• Fainting
• Difficulty in breathing
• Bluish skin colour
• Dry throat and mouth
Is cold and flu same ?
One must not be confused between cold and flu just because their names are taken together everywhere. There is a lot of difference between them you must understand.
The symptoms of cold can onset between 2-3 days ( mild or moderate ). However, flu is sudden ( moderate or severe ).
Headache or fever is rare in cold but common in flu.
What are the causes of common cold and flu ?
The cause of this common cold and viral flu is not explainable really. As it is a cause of many things. Some of the causes known can be –
• Physical contact
• Cough and sneezes
• Getting in touch with contaminated surfaces
• Not maintaining hygiene
• Influenza virus leads to flu
What are the risk factors of common cold ?
The risk factors associated with the common cold can include –
• Irregular and poor sleep cycle
• Oftenly smoking
• Age factor (children are more likely to get affected)
• Seasonal (people get more infected by colds and viruses during the seasons
• Chronic illnesses like asthma, cystic fibrosis and another lung disease
• Bad immune system
• Heart or kidney disease
• Morbid obesity
• Getting aspirin therapy
• Suffering from anaemia
When to see a doctor ?
If you see visible symptoms in your body related to cold or flu and especially during the rainy or cold season you must seek medical attention. Also, One needs to go for a medical check-up every three months to know if you suffer any infection or virus. Symptoms which are getting worst day by day and are persistent like high fever or difficulty in breathing, diagnosis and further treatments are required.
How to prevent yourself from this ?
Prevention does not take your extra time. You just need to take care of little small things in your daily life by which you will stay away from diseases and infections all time.
• Take care of your gut – keep your gut fresh and clean and protect the bacteria inside your gut. Have fruits especially apples a day.
• Avoid touching your face and hairs all the time
• Stay away from sick people ( especially those who are already affected by this.
• Wash your hands before eating, after peeing and pooping and even usually.
• Maintain proper hygiene around yourself.
• Grab your tissue when you cough or sneeze.
• Seek medical attention from time to time
• Have vitamin D supplements
• Do facial yoga
• Gargle
• Eat fresh foods
• Avoid stress and anxiety to hamper your life in any way
• Stick to a proper sleep schedule
• Stay warm
• Drink tea once a day during rainy and cold weather
• Cover your mouth with a mask while going out
Myths created –
Fact – there is no evidence or studies yet which proves that vitamin C helps in prevention from cold and flu.
Fact – cold and flu are completely two different viral infections . And they can change their stage further but they cannot turn in flu as flu is another strain of virus which do not connect to cold in anyway.
Fact – this is a partial myth. Cold and flu can be treated by antibiotics but only consumption of antibiotic cannot treat the disease completely. There are many other things that depend with consumption of antibiotics which needs to be taken care for complete treatment. consumption of antibiotics which needs to be taken care for complete treatment
Fact – no , there is no such evidence or study that proves it. Infract , consuming warm milk at night is very beneficial for your body.
Diagnosis
Cold and flu are most often self–diagnosed. There is not much needed to know if you suffer from the viral. You can understand it yourself if you detect the symptoms and signs explained above.
Also, doctors can perform chest x-rays in the case in need when you do not show any symptoms yourself.
Treatments
• Get a flu vaccine. The vaccine for flu is available both through nasal spray and gunshot.
• Go for over-the-counter medications Like antihistamines, analgesics and oral decongestants
• Anti–flu medications like amantadine, rimantadine and zanamivir can help in recovering from flu.
• One needs to go for simple home remedies like
1. Gargling
2. Echinacea
3. Drinking lots of water
4. Vapour rub remedy
5. Zinc lozenges
6. Warm bath
7. Bulb syringe
consume foods like soup, warm tea, Dahi, and popsicles.
Frequently asked questions -
Answer – yes , it is possible to get affected by two different types of cold at the very same time.
Answer – yes , cases have came where one suffers both viral at the same time.
Answer – sorry , there is currently no vaccine available for common cold.
Answer – since there are more than 200 different types of cold , it too hard to claim one particular vaccine which protects from all of them. But efforts are being made to create them soon.
Answer – yes , common cold is a contagious disease. .
Answer – common cold and flu are nit fatal. However , if left untreated can lead to birth of severe fatal disease in your body.
