What are the most important information you should remember about cold and flu?

You are coughing, your nose is runny and your throat is sore. So of course, you think the obvious; it’s a cold.

The thing is, it could as easily be the flu. The common cold and the flu are similar in many ways, especially in the symptoms they produce. Both the diseases are caused by viruses, albeit different viruses.

The symptoms manifest in different ways, and that’s how we can tell whether we have a cold or the flu. With a cold, the symptoms appear gradually. First there a slight fatigue, a stuffy nose, then eventually sneezing and a sore throat. There’s plenty of warning before the cold actually settles in.

The flu is not nearly so accommodating. The symptoms start suddenly, and aside from the ones discussed above, you’ll also develop a fever, experience chest pain and an ache all over the body. If you have health conditions like asthma, or heart problems, they can become aggravated. You may even develop pneumonia, or infections in the ear or the sinuses.