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Cold and Flu
Questions and answers about the "Common Cold"; symptoms in the upper respiratory tract like sneezing, scratchy throat, and runny nose, but adults don't typically have fevers. Colds are usually caused by the rhinovirus (up to 40% of colds), or Coronaviruses (about 20%), but there are more than 200 viruses that can cause the common cold. Also questions about the seasonal flu, also called "regular flu", caused mostly by Type A and Type B Influenza viruses. Flu starts with similar symptoms as a cold only it hits faster and harder and usually includes fever in adults. Although the "stomach flu" is a common term, it is not a real diagnosis. The proper medical term for stomach flu is gastroenteritis (an intestinal disease, sometimes viral but also bacterial), it is often mistaken for influenza because the flu can sometimes include vomiting and diarrhea.
4,331 Questions
What to eat or drink to make sore throat go away?
If it is a simple sore throat that does not require antibiotics, there are some things you can do to soothe it.
- avoid alcohol and spicy food
- drink warm tea with honey (if you can have honey)
- take Advil or Motrin (if you can have it)
- eat soft foods like bananas
- gargle warm salt water a few times a day (8 oz water to 1/2 teaspoon salt)
How much has the flu decreased since the vaccine?
Deaths and pneumonia have decreased as much as 90% since the start using the vaccine. That is surely one reason to get these each year.
Q-pan is the approved vaccine for Avian Flu or H5N1.
We call this type of immunity adaptive---> natural----> active immunity. Here how it works:
Adaptive immunity involves two classes of lymphocyte: B cells and T cells which work together in a coordinated system of adaptive immunity
B cells-antibody-mediated (humoral) immunity
T cells-cell-mediated (cellular) immunity
Adaptive immunity occurs in a series of stages
1. Recognition of antigen (flu virus)
2. Activation of lymphocytes
3. Effector phase (immune attack)
4. Decline of antigen causes lymphocyte death (homeostatic balance)
5. Memory cells remain for later response if needed
Baking sodas help sore throat?
Baking soda does not help sore throats. For a sore throat drink warm tea with honey.
What should you eat when you have runny nose?
Fluids and energy are always needed when you are sick for any reason. With a cold, vitamin C will help a lot in particular; eat an orange every day, or have some orange juice or homemade lemonade as well.
A doctor will be able to prescribe medicines for some aspects of the flu. Usually a person will have to let the flu run its course.
You do not diagnose the appendicitis on blood report. The diagnosis is mostly clinical. Ultrasound examination will help out in doubtful cases.
What are some strategies for feeling better when a person has the flu?
Usually the best medicine when it comes to the flu is lots of bed rest. Drinking clear liquids is preferred, some people like milk, but it can affect others negatively.
Can azithromycin cure the flu?
No. Azithromycin is an antibiotic. Antibiotics only work to kill or control growth of bacteria. The flu is not caused by bacteria, so antibiotics are ineffective to treat it. Influenza is caused by viruses.
How do you cure influenza in 1700?
Influenza is self limiting disease. Most of the people recover from it without treatment. In 1700, they might have there own remedies to treat influenza. Probably some of them may be using the leaves with salicylic acid in it. ( It might have caused Ray's syndrome in children.) Including cold sponging for high fever. For secondary infection the did not have antibiotics. But human longevity was increased long (100 years.) before advent of modern chemotherapy through improved sanitation. You are going back to square one with multi-drug resistant organisms at hand like NDM1.
When should you see a doctor if temperature stays at 96 1?
A normal temp is 98.6 but many people run a degree hotter or colder as their personal 'normal'. If your temp is normally 96.1 -- first try a different thermometer, preferably oral thermometer (NOT for babies/toddlers) to make sure the original thermometer is functioning properly. At 96.1, you would typically have symptoms including mental sluggishness, cold limbs, heart/pulse abnormalities, etc. If you have symptoms, go to the doctor.
Is the cetamol for cold and flu medicine safe to take by pregnant women?
That drug is probably paracetamol. It is safe in pregnancy.
How do you stop tremors with high fever?
If this is in infants or young children, contact their pediatricians immediately.
Usually the first step is to lower the fever, usually with fever-reducing medication or cold compresses. If the tremors are caused by shivers and chills (also called rigors) associated with an infection and fever, that is the way to relieve them, but you may also need antibiotics prescribed if you have a high fever and chills, so you should contact your health care professional. If the tremors are more like a seizure than chills, especially in children with a fever, it could be what is called a febrile seizure and that should be checked immediately by a physician.
What is haemophilus influenzae b?
It is a type of bacteria that can cause pneumonia. Although the name sounds like influenza, it is unrelated to the flu, which is caused by viruses and not bacteria.
What is culture-confirmed influenza?
It means that laboratory testing confirmed someone had influenza rather than their being diagnosed based only on their symptoms and the known areas with outbreaks. This is usually sufficient since influenza in humans is treated the same across all types. If there is a need to know exactly which type someone has (sometimes this is needed to find the very best anti-viral medication to use), then specimens from the patient are collected and sent to a special lab. There, they are grown (cultured) in the right environment to reproduce so they can be studied with electron microscopes to determine their exact strains. When this is known, the type of influenza making the patient ill is considered "culture-confirmed".
How do you end up with a sore throat when you are taking Keflex and Bactrim?
Its not recomended to use Keflex and Bactrim, because Keflex is bactericidal antibiotic that kills growing (multiplaying) bacteria, when Bactrim is bacteriostatic, that mean it prevent bacteria from being growing or multiply. Using both together we garantee complication (at least long term immunodeficiency), but not cure.
So to end up with a sore throat you have to take one, - preferably bactericidal antibiotic.
What are full proof ways you can get rid of a sour throat?
very warm water with about 1/3 teaspoon of sea salt & red pepper powder sprinkled in the mixture will give instant relief and after a few times gargling will get rid of the sore throat
Can you have the flu in your rectum?
Well for the sake of giving a good answer to an interesting question: oddly enough, I'd say yes.
Influenza viruses attack our bodies by attaching to the specific cells of our mucous tissue. This type of tissue is in the lining of the respiratory system and also in the lining of the gastrointestinal system. So, it is possible to catch the flu if the virus gets on your mucous tissue regardless of where it is in your body.
So, since the rectum is also lined with this type of tissue, it is possible (although unlikely) for a virus particle to enter into your gastrointestinal system at the top and not attach to the mucous tissue cells until it gets to the bottom and then manages to attach to one before it is excreted. In that sense, you would have flu virus particles attached to the cells of your mucous tissue in your rectum. And that could be considered having flu in your rectum.
Alternately, if you had the virus on your hand (or an object) and if that managed somehow to touch the mucous tissue at your anus, then virus particles could be introduced and attach directly to the mucous tissue of the rectum near the anus, and then you could also have flu in your rectum.
The symptoms would still be of the respiratory flu, not the "stomach flu" (gastroenteritis), however. It is the kind of virus that determines the symptoms, not the location of the introduction of the virus.
How does aspirin relieve the symptoms of the flu?
Aspirin would work as an analgesic, fever reducer, and anti-inflammatory (NSAID) agent. As an analgesic it helps with the headaches and body aches associated with the flu. As a fever reducer, it will help to bring a fever down. As an anti-inflammatory, it can reduce the body reaction to infection that causes the achy joints, tickling sensation in the respiratory system that adds to a cough and excess drainage and local reactions to the infection that the tissues in your nose and sinuses as well as in the throat, trachea and bronchial tubes, have to the presence of the virus.
All that said, remember that you should never use aspirin for anyone younger than 18. This is as a precaution against Reye's Syndrome that can be triggered by aspirin use with infectious viral diseases. Other NSAID drugs, or steroids prescribed by the doctor, should be used instead of aspirin in children and teens younger than 18.
Has a new influenza virus called Bat Flu been discovered?
Yes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just announced on February 27, 2012 that the first influenza virus found that is capable of infecting bats was just discovered in Guatemala in fruit bats. However, at present this is not a threat to humans and is undergoing extensive study to assure that it does not pose a future human health issue.
Preliminary studies do indicate that the genes carried in the new virus would be compatible with the genes in human influenza viruses, but the bat virus would have to undergo significant changes to be able to mutate into a new human virus capable of causing human influenza. To reassort and become a threat to humans, it would first require that a third animal be susceptible to infection by both the new virus and a human influenza virus as well.
If the third animal catches the new bat flu and would then at the same time be infected by a human influenza virus, then reassortant into a new virus capable of infecting humans could occur. However, it would require that a single cell of the third host animal would be infected simultaneously with the bat flu virus and a human flu virus. If two flu viruses are inside a host cell at the same tme, then the genetic material inside the two viruses could combine to form a new virus capable of infecting humans. This is how H1N1/09 first developed in pigs (see related question below).
A link to the CDC site's article on the new bat virus is provided in the related links section of this question.
What types of microbes are caused by flu?
Actually, the flu is the disease (influenza) and the microbes are what cause the disease, not the other way around. The pathogens ("microbes") responsible for the infectious disease called influenza are viruses.
Viruses are submicroscopic-sized particles that can attach to the cells of a host person, animal, plant or bacteria (they are very small even compared to bacteria and other pathogens that are called microbes*) and replicate within the cells. This eventually destroys the cells and makes us sick until our bodies can use the immune system's processes to get rid of it.
* Not all scientists classify viruses as microbes since they are submicroscopic and are non-living organisms.
You may have body aches but aching eyes would not be a typical symptom of pregnancy. Usually when it is said that you might have flu-like symptoms with pregnancy, it is referring more to the malaise, unexplained fatigue, and nausea and vomiting (such as with "stomach flu"), not the upper respiratory symptoms like cough, sneeze, sore throat, runny nose, watery eyes and high fever.
