2-3-09

Cold vs. Flu

When children are ill with colds and flu, parents want to help them recover quickly, but they may not be sure what to do.

Children tend to have a number of colds and flu during the winter months.  Because both illnesses have similar symptoms, parents may be confused about how to treat them.  Dr. Tracy Milbrandt, assistant professor and chief of ambulatory pediatrics at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, says the symptoms are usually more severe with influenza.

SOUND BITE: . . . “typically acute onset of symptoms including high fever, headaches and body aches which are certainly more significant than with your common cold as well as a hacking cough.  The fever tends to be higher to more like 103 to 104 and lasts for four to five days during the course of that illness.  Where a cold tends to be sort of a more smoldering onset.   We get a little bit of a stuffy nose, a little bit of a sore throat, gradually more congestion, more cough.” 

Dr. Milbrant says both illnesses can last for about a week with some lingering symptoms.  Maybe a lingering congestion or cough up for to two weeks.  She says there is no effective treatment for the common cold, but there are some approved medications for the flu.

SOUND BITE:  “ . . . we do have some anti-viral medications that are approved for down to age one, so children over the age of 12 months, that we can use to specifically target the influenza virus.  And those medications need to be started within the first 48 hours of the symptoms and it helps reduce the length of symptoms by a day or two.”

Dr. Milbrant suggests the best things to help a child recovery from an upper respiratory illness are drinking plenty of liquids and getting good rest.  To help prevent the flu, she recommends that children get a flu shot in the October or November each year.

This is Ruth Slottag at SIU School of Medicine in Springfield.