Is It The Flu Or Some Other 'Bug'?

With all the 'bugs' going around during winter, many sick people mistakenly think they have influenza. That may lead them to think the flu shots they got are not working.

Cold-like symptoms can be produced by many viruses circulating this time of year, such as rhino-, corona-, parainfluenza-, respiratory syncytial-, adeno- and other viruses.

Any of these can cause typical upper-respiratory symptoms such as runny nose, sore throat, sneezing, watery eyes and nasal obstruction, Dr. Keitel says. In fact, a mild case of influenza can also produce such symptoms.

Although other infections can be associated with flu-like illness, few if any have the same impact in the community as influenza. Not only can symptoms of influenza be severe, making you feel much worse than a cold ever could, but influenza complications can lead to death. As many as 20,000 people, most of them elderly, die each year in the U.S. from flu complications, chiefly pneumonia.

"Sometimes people will avoid getting flu shots," says Dr. Wendy Keitel of the Influenza Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine, "because they are convinced that they caught influenza from the shot last year."

Actually, they are likely associating the flu shot with a coincidental illness caused by some other infection.

"The danger in such thinking is that people who really need flu shots will not get them," Dr. Keitel says. "The elderly and people with heart and lung disease, in particular, should get flu shots annually because they are among the people most at risk for possibly deadly complications."

Dr. Keitel cautions that the flu vaccine is not 100 percent effective, "but your chances of avoiding the flu and its complications are significantly higher with the shot than without it."

- From Baylor College of Medicine

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Courtesy of Texas Medical Center News

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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URL: http://www.tmc.edu/health_briefs/02_01_98-flu.html.html