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Cold Symptoms Compared With Flu and Swine Flu

Symptoms: Cold vs. Flu vs. Swine Flu

October 6, 2009

From my corner of the world, it feels like the flu season is striking early this year. The swine flu never really went away and other viruses are lurking out there too. When you start feeling symptomatic, you want to know what you dealing with: a common cold, the flu, or the swine flu. To help read your symptoms, I have made a chart comparing these three common illnesses. Check it out when you read more.

Symptom	Cold	Flu	Swine Flu
Stuffy nose	Common	Sometimes	Common
Sore throat	Common	Sometimes	Common
Sneezing	Common	Uncommon	Uncommon
Cough	Mild to moderate, hacking, productive	Common and unproductive, painful chest	Common
Headaches	Occasionally	Common, often severe	Common
Body aches	Slight	Common, often severe	Common
Fever	Rare	Common, lasting 3 to 4 days	Common, but sometimes absent
Fatigue	Mild	Common, can be severe	Common, can be severe
Chills	Uncommon	Fairly common	Common
Vomiting	No	No	Common
Diarrhea	No	No	Common
Time frame of symptoms	Gradually appear	Come on suddenly (3 to 6 hours)	Come on rapidly

To clarify, influenza, aka the flu, is a respiratory illness. People often mistakenly call gastroentritis — "irritated and inflamed stomach and intestines" caused by bacteria, virus, or other irritant — the stomach flu. Common symptoms of gastroenteritis are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Source: Getty

9 Comments

vanillabean 3 years 32 weeks

Seems like the only real difference is the gastrointestinal problems. I'm going to get a flu shot, but am hoping that I can somehow get the one for swin flu too.

Spectra 3 years 33 weeks

Anon--it's possible that the rapid flu test they administered at the doctors' office was wrong. Ours occasionally give a false positive, which is why we always send any positives off to the State Lab to get tested by PCR, which is much more accurate than the rapid flu tests. And yeah, there's no such thing as the "stomach flu" or the "24 hour flu"...if you have diarrhea/vomiting for 24-48 hours with a mild fever, you probably have a mild case of food poison or have a virus that causes gastroenteritis.

Spectra 3 years 33 weeks

chloe bella 3 years 33 weeks

Whoa, Anon! Glad your daughter is doing so well!

esmerb 3 years 33 weeks

Fit I wish you had an allergies tab cause I confuse allergies with a cold...

3 years 33 weeks

My 8 year diabetic daughter just got diagnosed with the swine flu and the seasonal flu. Her only symptoms were occassional mild stomach pains and a low grade fever (99.4). She did not act sick in the least, I thought she was faking so she wouldn't have to go to school. I took her to the doctor just to be on the safe side. Low and behold, the flu!! Thirty minutes later, she was doing cartwheels through the house? What's up with that?

Yogaforlife 3 years 33 weeks

Just got my flu shot today! My doctor called and said she's already seeing patients coming in with it and she wanted me to get the shot as early as possible.

chloe bella 3 years 33 weeks

Ali 77 - What people usually refer to as "the flu" or "the stomach flu" really isn't the flu at all. Influenza, which is truly "the flu" is actually a respiratory illness. It's actually a lot like the common cold, except with the flu, you usually a couple days of having a high temperature before a sore throat develops.

3 years 33 weeks

umm. i DEFINITELY vomit when i get the flu. Children do especially. I don't trust this chart

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9 Comments

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