health
SHOULD I GO TO THE DOCTOR?
When should you visit your doctor, and when should you try and treat the illness at home (and how do you do just that)?
BY SOPHIE CLIFTON-TUCKER
W
ith the winter season comes a cacophony of coughs, sniffles and sneezes. In an effort to reduce the bottleneck caused by the sheer volume of people that flock to A&E with a simple common cold, using up valuable time and resources, we speak to Dr Krishna Rawal.
HOW DO I KNOW WHETHER I HAVE THE FLU, OR A COMMON COLD? he common cold is of course T the most 'common' and is a viral illness that can vary from just feeling a little 'out of sorts' to feeling tired and feverish with muscle aches, nasal congestion, sore throat, coughs and sneezes. Sometimes you may cough up some green sputum, but this in itself is not a sign of a secondary bacterial infection. Influenza or the flu is also viral but can last longer or be more severe with more extreme symptoms of fever, exhaustion, muscle aches and cough. However, for both GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE MARCH 2020
the common cold and the flu, the symptoms can vary from so mild you do not even know you have it, to being quite unwell, depending on your own state of health and immunity.
HOW CAN EACH OF THESE BE TREATED? Both the common cold and the flu are viral illnesses, so there is no definitive treatment that will get rid of the virus. The key is to support the immune system to do the job it is designed to do, by keeping warm and hydrated, avoiding strenuous exercise (which can aggravate the muscle aches), and using supportive medications such as paracetamol for general muscle aches, sugar free cough linctus or honey and lemon in hot water for a cough or sore throat. Often people worry about the fever and think this is a sign of a secondary infection or that the fever needs to be treated with paracetamol, however, fever itself is a sign of the immune system
working to fight the infection. The cold virus lives at body temperature, so the response in the body is to raise the body
Fever is a sign of the immune system working to fight the infection. temperature to kill the virus. In many cases a bit of fever, especially early on, is not a bad thing and 'sweating out' the cold is a way to fight the virus naturally. It is also worth considering staying at home so as not to pass the cold on to friends and colleagues at work, and also preventing spread using a tissue for coughs and sneezes – Catch it. Bin it. Kill it. Influenza that is bad enough to need medical treatment or admission may need specific anti-viral medications, but these are only considered in cases of rapidly spreading flu infections such as the ‘bird flu’ epidemic 69
