What is the difference between the flu and just the common cold?

Question

How do you know if you have the flu or just a cold?

Answer 1

These are caused by completly different viruses.
The cold is called a cold because you don't actually get a termperature (unlike the flu), it is an infection of the upper respiratory tract (nose and troat), although you can get secondary bacterial infections.

The flu is much more severe, with aches, temperatures (chills/flushed) , headaches, nausea,as well as the symptoms of a cold (runny nose), .
Some strains of the flu can be very severe eg Spanish Influenza pandemic.
I had a nasty flu once where I had a severe headache, aches, temp and I literaly didn't eat more that a spoonful fo food a day for a week (if you saw how I lok, you can see what an impossible task this would be for me normally). It took 3 weeks to get rid of, and then I had ear infections and stomach upsets to help....you truely know the difference between the 2.

Answer 2

The flu is more severe. You may run fevers, have aches, fatigue, vomit, have congestion and in general feel horrible. With a cold you will not have a fever or experience vomiting. Usually with a cold you will experience congestion, headaches, sore throat, fatigue, but these should only last about a week to 10 days.

Answer 3

Both are viral infections but the virus involved is different. With cold, you have sneezing, running nose and eyes. You may not have any fever and body pain which will be there with flu.

Answer 4

actually they are basically the same things. it is called influenza and there are many diferent types, example influenza a and influenza b, there are also many examples of each of these examples called subtypes, for example the H5N1 subtype of the influenza A virus is also commonly known as the "bird flu" or "avian flu". i would greatly recommend reading wikipedia on this matter, following also the links it does provide.