How to cure flu and cold?

It's winter and everybody has to experience common cold and get the flu, which can be a very annoying thing for alot of people while others just handle it as a small matter that goes away by itself.

Symptoms and signs of a cold:

The flu virus causes the following :

• Fever.
  

• Malaise, fatigue and headache and feeling of bone pain.
  

• Running nose, sneezing and nasal congestion/obstruction.
  

After a few days it may be complicated by secondary bacterial infection causing:

• The mucous (phlegm) color turns yellow, yellowish-green.

• Enlarged tonsils.

• Very sore throat and pharingitis.

• Sinusitis (headache over nasal sinuses specially in the morning, mucoid or purulent secretions).
• The infection can also spread to the larynx, pharynx and bronchi causing laryngitis, pharingitis and bronchitis.
  

General measures of treatment :

Rest. It's important to have adequate rest and sleep to strengthen your body as there's no way to kill the virus , so it's essential to have some rest and avoid cold air draughts. All you can do against the virus is to support and help your body to fight, reduce the symptoms and feel better, treat the bacterial infection (if occured) and wait until the symptoms subside.
The flu (alone) is a self-limited disease, the associated bacterial infection will need antibiotics (keep reading!).

Drink enough fluids.

Warm tea or chicken soap can help soothe your throat, also inhaling the steam can reduce the nasal congestion. Lozengens can help prevent and cure sore throat.

In case of a fever, sponge the body with lukewarm water (forehead, face and extremeties).Avoid very cold compresses/fomentations. Don't wrap yourself in so many blankets, don't close all the windows! Let some fresh air come into the room but avoid direct air draughts.

Avoid sneezing and coughing in your hands (use a tissue), and wash them if you do. Avoid touching your eyes and other people with your contaminated hands as it may transmit the infection to your eyes or to others.

Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. It's said that vitamin C can help shorten the duration of the disease. Nutrition is important during disease, Vitamins, zinc and copper are essential for your body.

Stop smoking and avoid exposure to smoke and pollution, it's very irritating for your nasal mucosa. Alcohol and smoking also reduce your immunity in different ways.

Medication and treatments of cold:

• Antibiotics can be used to treat the bacterial infection. Remember that antibiotics can't kill viruses , as we said the flu is caused by a virus, so antibiotics should be used only when secondary bacterial infection occur in association with the flu. (and they are often associated!). But if the symptoms are mild fever, chilling and sneezing , antibiotics aren't necessary.
  
  However some doctors prescribe antibiotics always as a prophylaxis against bacterial infection if the symptoms are severe and bacterial infection is most likely going to occur.

• Analgesics and antipyretics:Aspirin, Paracetamol (eg. Advil, Tylenol and Panadol) and others are used to reduce fever, reduce the nasal congestion and relief the headache and bone ache. You can read this post for information on analgesics, aspirin and which pain killer you should use.
  
  Most today's analgesics contain Paracetamol(or Ibuprofen) and Pseudoephiderine.
  Paracetamol is the substance responsible for reducing the pain and fever while pseudoephiderine [a decongestant] can help decrease the congestion and rhinitis (running nose).
  Some drugs contain paracetamol only, or paracetamol and caffiene as it can help the effect of paracetamol. Some drugs contain pseudoephiderine only such as nasal decongestants.

• Decongestant nasal drops or Gel are used to relief the nasal obstruction/congestion but only used 2-3 times per day as their overuse causes rebound congestion.
  

• Oral lozengens can help it treating and preventing pharyngitis and sore throat.

• There's alot of controversy about Antihistaminics. They may have the ability to reduce the allergic symptoms (rhinitis and sneezing) but they also have side effects like arrhythmia and drying of the mucous (making it harder to be expelled/expectorated).

• Cough sedatives can be used if severe cough develops. Read more about Bronchitis:Causes,symptoms and treatment.

Children and hypertensive patients, patients receiving other medications should consult a doctor about which drugs they should take to cure a cold.
Never use adults' drugs with children even with smaller doses.
Some drugs are dangerous for cardiac and hypertensive patients (as decongestants and antihistaminics).

Bronchitis:Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Bronchitis:
We always suffer from coughing usually just when we think that flu is almost over. So What Is Bronchitis?
It's infection to the air passages. The lining mucosa of the bronchi (air passages delivering air to your lungs) get's inflammed and swollen due to bacterial infection.
Always associated with flu, increased with smoking, exposure to pollutants and cold air draghts.

source of image

There are 2 types of bronchitis:

Acute Bronchitis: Defined above and mostly preceeded by cold/flu. Lasts for a few days usually.
Chronic Bronchits: A persistent, productive cough lasting at least three months in two consecutive years.

Causes:
In most cases , the very same influenza virus can cause bronchitis, and in some cases it is a bacterial infection. The cause can be non infective as in GERD (Gastro Esophogeal Reflux Disease) sometimes or chemical/smoke irritation. Allergy is the cause of bronchitis in some cases.

Symptoms and Signs:

• Dyspnea (Shortness of breath)
• Coughing and expectoration of mucus (phlegm).
• fever sometimes.
• Wheezes and chest pain.
• Hemoptysis (coughing of blood) sometimes.
• Fatigue and exhaustion by the continious coughing.

The cough may continue even up to 3 weeks after all the symptoms disappear.

Treatment:
1-Fluid intake and stopping of smoking and exposure to smoke. Make sure to drink alot of fluid and water as water is the best natural mucolytic.

2-Rest.

3-Expectorants and mucolytics.

4-Antibiotics are used if bacterial infection is suspected by the doctor, otherwise antibiotics are not neccesary as the cause is usually viral.

5-Bronchodilators/inhalers in cases of asthma or acute exacerbation over chronic bronchitis.

6-Antihistaminics should be avoided as they cause more thickining and drying of mucus. So becareful with antihistaminics.

Related Articles:

- How to cure a cold?

Anemia : symptoms, causes and prevention

Anemia:

Anemia is a disease in which your blood can't deliver enough oxygen to your body, muscles and organs due to low number of red blood cells or little hemoglobin amount inside them or other causes. Some types of anemia are congenital or hereditary meaning you are born with it such as thalassemia, other and most types are aquired mainly due to bad eating habits or unhealthy behaviour.

Symptoms of Anemia:

Anemia symptoms may include pallor (in the nail beds and inner sides of lips mainly), easy fatigability, anorexia (lost appetite), palpitations and shortness of breath.

Prevention :

The congenital type can be prevented by gene councelling and avoiding consanguinity.

What about aquired types of anemia like Iron Deficiency Anemia, the most common anemia in the world? This type is obviously due to deficiency of iron intake, or maybe iron absorbtion mechanisms or maybe due to increasing body requirements more than normal as in adolescence and preterm babies which need more amounts than normal people.

Folic acid and Vitamin B12 deficiencies cause other types of anemia too. It's important to get enough supply of these subtances for your body to function properly and to prevent anemia and alot of other diseases.

To prevent these disorders you have to eat food rich in iron such as lean meat, beef liver [cooked] ,green leafy vegetables, eggs, lentils, Bran cereal (fortified cereals) and spinach when boiled.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, vegetable oils are great sources of iron and alot of essential vitamins for your body.

Vitamin C helps your body to absorb more iron, orange and lemons, strawberries, fresh fruits and tomatoes are good sources of vitamin c. Don't forget to choose cereals labelled "enriched" or fortified with iron.

Supplementations with multivitamin tablets and iron are important and prescribed by doctors during pregnancy and other conditions requiring more iron and vitamins and in people with bad eating habits and low iron levels in their blood.

It's important to mention that adult women need more iron as they lose iron in menstrual blood, so they should consider eating more iron containing fod during this period.

Good nutrition is the key to prevent many diseases that can be easily prevented just by choosing what you eat carefully.

Most Anemias can be easily treated these days, so if you are complaining of one or more of it's symptoms you can go to the doctor and make some tests to make sure you prevent/treat anemia early if it was diagnosed.