How Do You Tell The Difference Between The Common Cold And Seasonal Allergies?

— -- Question: How do you tell the difference between the common cold and seasonal allergies?

Answer: In general, allergies tend to start more with watery eyes, irritated eyes, a little bit of an itching sensation or a clogging in the ear, and some nasal congestion, or maybe even a sore or scratchy throat, but not severe.

Colds tend to come on a little bit more severely, more of a sore throat, more of a fatigue, more of a thicker and irritating mucus that people can have, more of an earache.

So in terms of the differentiation, the colds at first at least tend to be more severe, but if allergies go on for longer, then they can get to those levels, and it becomes more important to see a doctor and consider should I be treating this as just allergies or should I be treating this as a cold.

Certainly if you have a higher fever, if you have more of a headache, if you have a lot of thicker or yellow or green mucus, then those are generally more signs of an infection which may be a virus or even bacteria, and you might need more treatment than that, so if you're having more of those symptoms that tell you that you're really feeling sick rather than just bothered by the allergy symptoms or fatigued, then that would be a time to see your doctor.

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