"Sorry, I can't come out tonight. I've got the flu...or it could be the cold."
How many of you have said something like this at some point in your life? There is quite a bit of difference between the common cold and the flu, and after this article you'll confidently be able to say: "Sorry, I can't come out tonight. I've got the flu, yes, the flu, not the cold." You might be sick, but you sure know what you have.
The flu is the more severe of the two diseases. It usually begins suddenly with a fever that's somewhere in the 102 to 106 degree area, (adults normally have lower fevers than children). By contrast, it's rare to have a fever when you have the cold, and if you get one it's usually mild. Flus also usual come with aches and pains all over the body and sometimes chills, whilst these are again rarely seen in colds. Fatigue is another symptom of the flu, although you do also feel fatigued with a cold, it's usually worse with a flu. The same goes for discomfort in the chest and headaches, they appear in both colds and flus, but they're much worse in flus.
Colds on the other hand are usually centered somewhere in the nasal area, and are characterised by runny noses, which are rarely seen with flus. If you have a cold, you'll also be sneezing quite a bit and you'll probably be coughing up some junk, whilst with a flu you shouldn't be sneezing quite so much and your coughs will be pretty dry.
Many people identify a sore throat before any other symptom when they fall sick. Well, it's hard to tell whether you have a cold or a flu with a sore throat, because they tend to appear in both viruses. The general rule is that sore throats are worse in flus than they are in colds, but in practice it can be hard to tell. The best guideline to use here is to check whether you're running a high fever with the sore throat, if so, then it's probably a flu.
As mentioned already, the flu generally hits you quick and hard, you might wake up feeling fine, but by noon you'll be in bed. The cold on the other hand starts off gradually and gets worse over a couple of days. The good news about the flu is that most of the symptoms that affect the whole body, (such as fatigue and aches) will start to get better after three or four days. However, the flu virus will probably carry on for about a week, possibly longer, whilst the cold should be gone in less than a week.
Well, that's about it for the differences between a cold and a flu. As you probably have seen, the flu is generally the more severe of the two as well as the longer lasting. However, I've found that taking antibiotics generally helps get rid of the flu whilst the cold is down to your immune system to take care of. Whichever one you get, get lots of rest and hopefully it'll pass over soon.
