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.

To treat both these conditions, plenty of rest and lots of fluids is essential. For the flu, there are vaccines available which help alleviate the symptoms.

Home Remedies Used to Treat Cold and Flu

There are many home remedies that are used to treat cold and flu, these can include teas, herbal remedies, and vitamins. These can safely be used by most people without any type of side effects or drug interactions with prescription medications.

The home or natural remedies have been used for centuries to battle the common cold and influenza, and is one way of treating these conditions without putting chemicals into the body. For some people that is especially important because of prescription medications they are taking like blood pressure medication, which should not be mixed with cold medications. There are also people that cannot take over the counter cold or flu medications because they have allergic reactions to them. These are people that the home remedies work well for, like tea with honey and lemon, while it feels good, it also helps stop coughing and it is not possible to take to much.

The home remedies also have other advantages, many of the herbal remedies help other parts of the body function and vitamins will also help make the body healthier, which is something cold or flu medicines can only treat the symptoms, but not actually make the body healthier.