Flu or influenza is caused by the influenza virus but there are viruses that cause illnesses that are similar to flu. The illnesses that happen because of viruses that cause illnesses similar to are called the flu-like illnesses. If you happen to catch flu, you don’t need to worry since it can heal just by traditional natural remedy or flu medication and you can recover fully and ready to conquer the world again. But what you need to worry is if the flu has a complication like pneumonia. So, in this article, we will discuss the flu symptoms and the treatment as well the flu-like illnesses symptoms and treatments.
The Flu Symptoms
The flu symptoms or influenza symptoms in adults and children 6 years above are the fever, sweats, muscle and joints pain, dry cough, sore throat, sneezing, and headache. And when you get these symptoms you need to get to bed no matter how old are you. But the flu illness intends to be worse than flu-like illnesses.
For babies and children under 6 years old age, if they got flu, the symptoms are fever, sweat, a cough, sore throat, sneezing, breath heavily, energy lacking, and usually, they don’t want to eat anything which probably caused by a sore throat. Some of these children may have a febrile convulsion which is a fit that occurs if they have a fever when the flu attacks.
The symptoms usually get worst in a day or two but then it will ease after several days but a cough may stay longer even after other symptoms are gone. The recovery times usually took 2-10 days for most people.
The flu symptoms can be symptoms of other serious illness to in the first development stage, for example, malaria, meningitis or pneumonia. You need to look out these symptoms that can indicate that this is not a flu illness but it’s another serious illness. The symptoms are rash, stiff neck, headache that become worse and worse, bright light hurts your eyes, drowsiness, confusion, vomiting, pain in your chest, and blood come out when you are coughing or spit sputum. You need to go to your doctor if you have these symptoms and tell it to your doctor.
Treatments for Flu and Flu-like Illnesses
Usually, our immune system will fix the flu illness and flu-like illnesses. But treatments are needed to handle the symptoms until it’s gone and even to prevent the complication. The treatments can be done based on the symptoms. If you have a fever, take paracetamol or ibuprofen to make your temperature down, it can also ease the aches and pain. Drink a lot to prevent the dehydration. For your sore throat, you could use the throat lozenges while you can use decongestant drops for your cough and saline nasal for your running nose.
To kill the virus, the doctor may suggest an antiviral medicine such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza). Since this is virus-caused-illness you don’t need antibiotics because antibiotics only use to kill bacteria. But if you have a complication developed and it is caused by germs such as pneumonia, you need antibiotics.
