Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Unlike a cold it starts suddenly and knocks you down — high fever, aching limbs and days of exhaustion.
Also known as: flu · influenza
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Unlike a cold, flu usually starts abruptly: high fever, severe aching limbs and headache, a strong feeling of illness, dry cough. People often know the hour it began. The exhaustion can linger for weeks. Most cases are uncomplicated, but in older people, those with chronic illness and in pregnancy it can become serious — above all through added pneumonia. See a doctor for breathlessness, persistently high fever, or renewed worsening after improvement.
With fever and aching limbs, clear the day; only take up exertion again a day after the fever has gone.
Drink spread over the day, warm preferred, enough that the urine stays pale.
Dip two cloths in hand-warm water, wring them out, wrap the calves, change after ten minutes, repeat three times.
The fever usually lasts three to five days, the exhaustion often two weeks beyond that. The difference from a cold lies in the onset: flu starts within hours, a cold over days. Antivirals only work if started within the first forty-eight hours and shorten the course by about a day.
Oseltamivir slows the release of new virus from the cell — it only works if started within forty-eight hours of the first signs, and then shortens the course by about a day. After that it does little, because the multiplication has already happened. Antibiotics change nothing about flu; they come into play only if a second rise in fever follows the improvement. Fever reducers do not shorten the illness.
Unlike a cold that builds over days, flu arrives all at once: one often knows the hour. High fever, shivering and the feeling of no longer being able to stand.
Muscles and joints hurt, the head pounds, the eyes burn in the light. The runny nose is often the smallest complaint — exactly the other way round from a cold.
Fever and pain ease after three to five days, the tiredness and the dry cough need two to three weeks. Going back to full speed too early tends to prolong it.
New fever after some better days, breathlessness, pain on breathing, purulent sputum: that is the pattern of a pneumonia joining in, and it belongs looked at.
They arrive with the fever and are among the first signs — unlike a cold, which tends to start slowly in the nose.
Usually only moderately raised with influenza. If it climbs steeply again after a few days of improvement, a bacterial pneumonia has usually joined in.
Shows the typical shift of the white cells. For treatment at home it changes nothing.
Severe muscle pain, especially in the calves in children, can come from an inflammation of the muscle. Then the value belongs alongside.
Fever, sweating and faster breathing clearly raise the need. Drinking enough keeps the mucus thin and the circulation steady — in children and older people it is the most important point of all.
With low levels airway infections occur somewhat more often; correcting a deficiency makes sense, a high single dose during the infection does not act on it.
Needed by the defence cells. For lozenges at the start of a cold there are hints of a slightly shortened duration; at a high dose over months zinc lowers copper.
Antibodies and defence cells are protein. After several days with little appetite it is worth at least keeping the protein up — soup with egg, quark, yoghurt, lentils.
The pooled studies show slightly fewer respiratory infections with daily or weekly dosing — the effect comes almost entirely from people with a low starting value. Single large loading doses did not work.
Studied in influenza in small trials, with a reported shortening; the largest and most independent study found no difference. That is the honest state of things — no more and no less.
With fever the fluid need rises by about half a litre per degree per day. That is the measure that counts most in everyday life and gets named least often.
Cortisone at higher doses has been studied in severe influenza and showed no benefit — rather more complications. That is one of the cases in which an anti-inflammatory stands in the defence’s way.
With diabetes the sugar rises markedly during an infection, even without eating more — stress hormones drive it up. This is why it is measured more often in those days and the treatment is not stopped just because less is being eaten.
Per degree of fever fluid needs rise by about 10 %. Loss of appetite for 2–3 days is normal; small light meals keep strength up without burdening the stomach.
A review of 25 studies found fewer respiratory infections after correction in people with low levels. At normal levels no difference showed — that is where opinions part.
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