If you have got any higher respiratory signs, it’s a good suggestion to check your self for the flu and COVID. Both are on the rise, and though COVID has extra of a dry cough plus a headache, it may be mistaken for the widespread chilly.
“Both have cough, each can have sore throat,” O’Mahony stated. If you understand you have got COVID, for instance, you could profit from taking Paxlovid. Those recognized with the flu can take an antiviral comparable to Tamiflu, Relenza, Rapivab, or Xofluza.
If you check damaging for the flu and COVID, it’s nonetheless value checking in with a healthcare supplier, comparable to a main care physician, pressing care physician or telehealth doctor.
We don’t have particular remedies for rhinovirus, adenoviruses and RSV, Strange stated, however your supplier could make suggestions that will help you get better — relaxation, keep hydrated, and take over-the-counter medicines like Mucinex DM and Robitussin DM (so long as you don’t have any contraindications). They may prescribe medicines, comparable to cough medicines or corticosteroids, which might enhance signs by decreasing irritation within the airways.
If your signs persist for a pair weeks, you’ll need to proceed following up together with your doctor. There are some critical bacterial infections, together with mycoplasma (aka strolling pneumonia), legionella and pneunococcal pneumonia, that may trigger a hacking cough.
If your physician suspects any of those, they’ll run assessments and prescribe the suitable antibiotics, Strange stated. In addition, some individuals could develop a secondary bacterial or new viral an infection, in accordance with Braunstein. Warning indicators of this embody a brand new fever and darker or extra extreme phlegm.
Outside of that, you need to wash your arms incessantly and canopy your mouth and nostril whenever you cough, Strange stated, to keep away from spreading it to others. Listen to your physique: for those who’re actually sick, keep indoors till you’re feeling higher. We’re formally within the thick of chilly and flu season — these viruses aren’t going anyplace, for the following few months not less than.
Now’s the time to take further precautions, and as Strange identified, use widespread sense for those who or others round you get sick.
This put up initially appeared on HuffPost.
