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Symptoms & Complications

Do you know the warning signs of flu, and how flu is different from a cold? Learn more about flu symptoms in adults and children, and find out how flu can affect you if you’re pregnant or have a chronic condition.

How to Tell When You Have the Flu
1. What Does Flu Feel Like? You’re sneezy, stuffed up, and feel bad all over. Is it a cold, or do you have the flu?
2. Is It the Flu or a Cold? Colds and flu have similar symptoms. But when you have the flu, you feel the symptoms sooner than you would with a cold, and they come on with greater intensity.
3. Should You Get a Flu Test? A doctor can usually tell if you have the flu based on your symptoms. But they may want to give you a quick test to be sure the influenza virus is to blame, and not another health problem.
Special Situations
1. When to Call a Doctor People typically recover from flu after a week or two without any lasting problems. But sometimes it can lead to serious complications that require emergency care.
2. When It's Not Just the Flu Sometimes, the flu can lead to more serious health problems like sinusitis (sinus infections), bronchitis, or pneumonia.
3. Children and Flu It’s not always easy to tell your child has the flu. The illness comes on fast and is more intense than a cold. Kids tend to feel worse during the first 2 or 3 days they're sick.
4. Pregnancy and Flu Flu can be more severe when you’re pregnant, and it may last three times longer. You may also be more likely to get complications like pneumonia.
5. Flu in Older Adults Learn the facts about flu in older adults, including strategies for prevention and treatment.
6. Asthma and Flu With asthma, any respiratory infection, including the flu, can affect your lungs, causing inflammation and airway narrowing.
7. Heart Disease and Flu If you have heart disease, learn what you can do to prevent, manage, and treat flu. Read about flu symptoms, and learn when you should call your doctor.
8. Diabetes and Flu When you have diabetes, getting a flu can be quite serious. Learn how to handle the flu and avoid getting it.
9. AIDS, HIV, and Flu Getting flu when you have HIV or AIDS can result in developing flu complications such as pneumonia. Learn more about flu and HIV/AIDS and find out how to prevent serious problems.
10. Swine Flu and Chronic Conditions If you have a chronic condition like heart disease, diabetes, or obesity, you need to take extra care to protect yourself from all types of the flu, but especially the strain pH1N1 (swine flu).

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