Common Cold

Flu is a respiratory infection caused by viruses. Although they share similar symptoms, they are caused by different type of viruses. Flu is caused by influenza viruses only, while cold can be caused by many kind of viruses. People with cold are more likely to have a runny or stuffy nose.

The symptoms of cold have lower severity than flu. Fever and headache can be intense when a person caught flu. While common cold symptoms are stuffy nose, sore throat, and sneezing.

Why cold causes stuffy nose?

Stuffy nose (nasal congestion) is when something is irritating the tissues (group of similar cells working together for specific function) and creates inflammation, swelling, and mucus production. Our nose may inhale something unwanted such as dirt or allergens. If the hair nose failed to catch the intruders, the tissue lining inside our nose inflamed creates swelling. The immune system will kick away intruders by flooding our nose with mucus.

There are two types of nasal congestion causes:

• Allergic Rhintis

When a human body reacts to allergens.

• Nonallergic Rhintis

When inflammation builds up in the nasal tissues that caused by viral illnesss (illness caused by virus) or exposed by certain triggers. Such as stress, paint, spicy food, hormonal change, sinusitis, etc.

To relieve a runny or stuffy nose, we can take pseudophedrine.