Cold vs. Flu: Symptom Checker & Expert Advice

CS-Blog

Cedars-Sinai Blog

Oct 15, 2017
Katie Rosenblum

Cold Symptoms

A cold is a viral upper respiratory tract infection that typically affects the nasal part of the respiratory system. The infection is usually mild and goes away without treatment. Symptoms may include a runny nose, headache, and sneezing. About half of patients can also experience a cough or sore throat. A cough that persists after other cold symptoms have cleared up may indicate bronchitis, sometimes called a chest cold, which is an inflammation of the airways in the lungs.

Colds are most common in winter and spring months, and usually last 7-10 days. You can help prevent a cold with frequent handwashing and by avoiding contact with people who have a cold.

Not a cold? Read, Why Am I Sneezing?

Flu Symptoms

The flu is caused by the influenza virus and lasts about 5-7 days. Symptoms of seasonal flu typically include fever, fatigue, headache, and muscle aches. The best way to avoid getting the flu is by getting a flu shot, which takes about 2 weeks after injection to start protecting you from the flu virus.

“Get your flu vaccine before the flu season starts,” says Dr. Kang. “This not only reduces your risk of the flu, it also protects more vulnerable people around you who may not have good immunity, such as the elderly, people with chronic illnesses, or small children.”

Who should get a flu shot? According to Dr. Jonathan Grein, Cedars-Sinai’s director of hospital epidemiology, everyone 6 months or older should get an annual flu shot before flu season starts.

Read: What’s the Difference Between a Cold, the Flu and COVID-19?

Do I Have a Cold or the Flu?

Should I go to the doctor?

Colds and flu are not treated with antibiotics and rarely require a trip to the doctor. While the flu can occasionally be life-threatening for those with reduced immunity, for most people the best remedy for a speedy recovery from a cold or flu is usually rest and plenty of fluids.

Dr. Kang recommends seeking medical attention if you experience shortness of breath or trouble breathing, pain or pressure in the chest or stomach, dizziness when standing, decreased urination, confusion, inability to keep fluids down, or a fever lasting more than 48 hours. If you experience any of these symptoms, visit your primary care doctor or urgent care as soon as possible.

Read: Flu: When to Go to the ER

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Diagnosing Flu | CDC

How do I know if I have flu?

Your respiratory illness might be influenza (flu) if you have fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and/or fatigue. Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children. People may be sick with flu and have respiratory symptoms without a fever. Flu viruses usually cause the most illness during the colder months of the year. However, flu can also occur outside of the typical flu season. In addition, other viruses can also cause respiratory illness similar to flu. So, it is impossible to tell for sure if you have flu based on symptoms alone. If your doctor needs to know for sure whether you are sick with flu, there are laboratory tests that can be done.

What kinds of flu tests are there?

A number of tests are available to detect flu viruses in respiratory specimens. The most common are called “rapid influenza diagnostic tests (RIDTs).” RIDTs work by detecting the parts of the virus (antigens) that stimulate an immune response. These tests can provide results within approximately 10-15 minutes but may not be as accurate as other flu tests. Therefore, you could still have flu, even though your rapid test result is negative. Other flu tests called “rapid molecular assays” detect genetic material of the flu virus. Rapid molecular assays produce results in 15-20 minutes and are more accurate than RIDTs.

In addition to RIDTs and rapid molecular assays, there are several more accurate flu tests available that must be performed in specialized laboratories, such as hospital and public health laboratories. These tests include reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), viral culture, and immunofluorescence assays. All of these tests require that a health care provider swipe the inside of your nose or the back of your throat with a swab and then send the swab for testing. Results may take one to several hours.

How well can rapid tests detect flu?

During a flu outbreak, a positive rapid flu test is likely to indicate flu virus infection. However, rapid tests vary in their ability to detect flu viruses, depending on the type of rapid test used, and on the type of flu viruses circulating. Also, rapid tests appear to be better at detecting flu in children than in adults. This variation in ability to detect viruses can result in some people who are infected with flu having a negative rapid test result. This situation is called a false negative test result. Despite a negative rapid test result, your health care provider may diagnose you with flu based on your symptoms and their clinical judgment.

Will my health care provider test me for flu if I have flu-like symptoms?

While your doctor may test you for flu, not everyone who goes to the doctor with flu-like symptoms will be tested. After evaluating you, your doctor may choose to diagnose you with flu without the need for testing based on your symptoms and his or her own clinical judgement.

Please visit diagnosing flu for more information.

Can I have flu and COVID-19 at the same time?

Yes. It is possible to have flu as well as other respiratory illnesses including COVID-19 at the same time. Health experts are still studying how common this can be.

Is there a test that can detect both flu and COVID-19?

Yes. There is a test that will check for seasonal flu type A and B viruses and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This test is being used by U.S. public health laboratories for surveillance purposes. Testing for these viruses at the same time will give public health officials important information about how flu and COVID-19 are spreading and what prevention steps should be taken. The test will also help public health laboratories save time and testing materials, and possibly to return test results faster.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given CDC an Emergency Use Authorization for this new test. Initial test kits were sent to public health laboratories in early August 2020. CDC will continue to manufacture and distribute these kits.

More information for laboratories is available.

Influenza – symptoms of the disease, methods of treatment and prevention – symptoms, diagnosis, treatment at NCC No. 2 (CCH RAS)

Influenza is an infectious disease with a pronounced seasonality: the incidence increases in the autumn and winter months. The causative agents of infection are different types of virus, most often A and B.

Every year, 3-5 million cases of severe influenza and 290-650 thousand deaths are recorded worldwide. In the Russian Federation, about 1,000 people die from the infection and its complications during the season.

The route of transmission of the influenza pathogen is airborne. A sick person releases the virus when sneezing, talking, coughing. Rarely, contact-household transmission occurs through dishes and household items.

Flu symptoms

The virus enters the body through the mucous membrane of the nasopharynx, eyes. The incubation period lasts from several hours to 2 days.

The first symptoms of influenza in adults and children are fever (above 38 ° C), headaches, body aches with pain in the joints and muscles, weakness, chills. After some time, cough, runny nose, sore throat may appear.

The duration of the disease is on average 3-7 days. When a bacterial infection is attached, the symptoms last longer.

In part of the population, the flu can be severe. At risk are:

• children under 2 and adults over 65
• immunocompromised persons
• patients with serious chronic diseases, overweight, oncological pathology
• pregnant women
• smokers.

Consequences of influenza

Complications develop in 1 patient out of 5. The most common inflammatory processes of various organs:

• bronchitis, pneumonia
• sinusitis
• myocarditis
• meningitis and encephalitis.

The virus and its toxins have a negative impact on the functioning of organs, for example, endocrine. As a result, it is possible to develop diabetes mellitus or worsen the course of an existing disease.

The virus reduces the body’s defenses, as a result of which a bacterial infection can develop.

The virus is especially dangerous for pregnant women. Infection can lead to a threatened miscarriage, fetal abnormalities, and premature birth.

High probability of death in patients at risk. The most vulnerable are patients who are simultaneously infected with the influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2.

Influenza treatment

Antibacterial drugs are used only when bacterial complications are attached. The main method of treating influenza is the use of antiviral agents with proven effectiveness.

Flu protection

The most effective method of prevention is the flu shot. Vaccination can be carried out from 6 months of age. The preparations do not contain a live virus and are administered intramuscularly in the first half of autumn.

In Russia, the following flu vaccines are used:

• trivalent, which protect against 3 strains – Sovigripp, Grippol plus, Flu-M
• quadrivalent vaccines that provide protection against 4 strains – FLU-M Tetra, Ultrix Quadri.

The composition of the vaccines changes annually depending on which strain of the virus is predicted for the current season.

Influenza vaccination schedule:

1. Previously unvaccinated and sick children – twice with an interval of 1 month between injections. Followed by an annual single vaccination.
2. Adults – once a year.
3. Pregnant women – once in the 2nd or 3rd trimester.

It is officially allowed to get vaccinated against influenza and coronavirus infection at the same time.

It is possible to carry out emergency vaccination in the focus according to the usual scheme, but it may be ineffective. The body will not have time to develop antibodies, as the incubation period is short.

Influenza vaccination at NCC No. 2 (Central Clinical Hospital of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

Influenza vaccination at NCC No. 2 (CCH RAS) is carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Russian Ministry of Health. Only vaccines recommended for the 2022-2023 season are used.

Before vaccination, the doctor conducts an examination, collects an anamnesis and excludes contraindications to the procedure. After the injection, the patient is under the supervision of a health worker for 30 minutes.

Get vaccinated against the flu at the Research Institute of Pediatrics” (leave a request)

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With the onset of cold weather, the incidence of acute respiratory viral infections began to grow in Russia: Rospotrebnadzor reported last week that the incidence rate of SARS and influenza increased by 18.5% compared to the previous week. At the same time, the department reported that, in addition to influenza and coronavirus, rhinoviruses, RS viruses, metapneumoviruses and adenoviruses are detected in patients. We talked to doctors to figure out how to distinguish one disease from another.

— You need to understand that ARVI is a large group of diseases. The viruses that cause them belong to completely different groups, families, they are not even related, says immunologist Nikolai Kryuchkov. “They show up in the same way. If we consider many such patients with one disease, a second, a third, the difference in the distribution of certain symptoms will be: somewhere one symptom is more common, somewhere else. But at the individual level, this absolutely does not allow in any way to differentiate one disease from another.

Nikolay Kryuchkov — Immunologist, General Director of LLC Clinical Excellence Group, Associate Professor of I.M. Sechenov Medical University.

The immunologist says that flu and covid are usually characterized by a rapid rise in temperature to high values. It is believed that this is less common with other acute respiratory viral infections, but it happens that an adenovirus infection also gives a sharp high temperature. So just a high temperature does not allow you to accurately determine whether it is the flu or something else.

“Influenza is characterized by such symptoms as aches in muscles, in joints, as they say, in bones, and headache — these are signs of the classic flu,” says pulmonologist Alexei Krivonogov. “But virology is changing, the susceptibility of the population, the immune response and, accordingly, the clinical picture are changing.

Aleksey Krivonogov — pulmonologist, head of the New Hospital Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of the Consequences of the New Coronavirus Infection in Yekaterinburg.

Nikolai Kryuchkov says that the RS-viruses and metapneumoviruses circulating this year more often affect the lower respiratory tract, rhinoviruses – the upper respiratory tract. Influenza and covid can catch both. However, again, only by the site of the lesion it is impossible to say what exactly a person is sick with. In addition, there may be more than one virus in the body – these are also additional tasks for doctors.

“Mixed infection, when the disease is caused simultaneously by several viruses, is not uncommon,” says Nikolai Kryuchkov. – That is, a person can be infected with the flu and rhinovirus at the same time, for example.

The immunologist notes that although the reports of Rospotrebnadzor contain data on the prevalence of a particular disease, it should be understood that they are very relative.

— We do not perform routine laboratory diagnostics of SARS. Population studies are being conducted, but they are also very limited – both in terms of the sample and the method of its formation, he says.

However, the data of Rospotrebnadzor is enough to know for sure that influenza A (h2N1), better known as swine, is “walking” in Russia this year. To distinguish it from other variants of the flu only by the symptoms will not work either, the symptoms are similar: high fever, sore throat, cough, general weakness, malaise, headaches, body aches.

“We will be able to make some conclusions about the peculiarities of the course of influenza this season, when the number of cases increases and we will see how they will proceed,” says pulmonologist Alexei Krivonogov.

As for covid, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish it from the flu and other SARS. If at the beginning of the pandemic, coronavirus infection could be recognized by the loss of smell and partly of taste, which were characteristic of it, then with the advent of new strains, these symptoms began to occur less frequently.