Key Causes for Persistent Cold

If you often feel stressed, tired, and overwhelmed by work pressure, it can prolong the duration of the flu, resulting in continuous and prolonged coughing symptoms. The cycle of stress - flu - stress creates a vicious loop, making the illness increasingly severe.

To alleviate flu symptoms early, maintain a relaxed mindset, get enough 8-hour sleep each day to enhance work efficiency, and stay away from stress and fatigue.

The intense pressure from work or study not only weakens the body but also reduces its immunity, making you more susceptible to the flu. Your flu symptoms may last longer than usual due to the daily pressures you face.

What you need to do now is to dedicate some time for yourself to rest and relax thoroughly. In particular, make sure to take medication and exercise regularly!

Everything in excess is harmful, so excessively dry or damp indoor air creates ideal conditions for the flu to linger longer.

High humidity promotes the growth of fungi and bacteria, triggering allergic reactions, and causing flu-like symptoms such as sneezing and coughing. In excessively dry air, breathing becomes difficult, requiring more forceful inhalation and exhalation, damaging the respiratory mucosa and leading to flu or dry cough.

Maintaining indoor relative humidity (RH) levels between 35-50% is crucial to prevent adverse health effects of both excessively dry and damp indoor air.

Currently, there are various methods to maintain indoor humidity, especially during harsh winters. You can invest in a humidifier or a more powerful air humidification device to ensure that your indoor space remains at the optimal humidity level.

Influenza is a common illness; on average, adults may experience influenza 1 to 2 times a year with symptoms such as nasal congestion, sore throat, difficulty breathing, and runny nose.

Many people consider it a simple ailment or just a sign of weather changes and let the illness resolve naturally without medication or any treatment. Allowing influenza to self-heal or not using medication can lead to dangerous cardiac abnormalities, bronchitis, or respiratory tract inflammation.

Some illnesses may resolve on their own, as they only occur during unusual weather changes. When your body adapts to the new weather environment, seasonal illnesses like these are likely to automatically resolve.

However, you should not be overly complacent, as this can lead to more severe complications. Relying on self-healing for illnesses is not encouraged. Instead, take medication, stay hydrated, rest, and exercise regularly every day.

One reason why the flu persists longer is because you don't hydrate enough, causing mucus to accumulate. Drinking water helps thin mucus, thereby clearing your stuffy nose.

The flu can cause dehydration, especially if you experience vomiting or diarrhea.

So, ensure adequate hydration by consuming:

• Filtered water, fruit juice, or electrolyte-rich beverages.
• Herbal tea with honey can soothe a sore throat and is also an effective flu remedy.
• If you feel nauseous, drink water in small sips.

However, avoid:

• Caffeine-containing beverages as they have diuretic effects, causing more water loss in your body.
• Avoid sugary drinks as they can impact inflammation resistance, worsening your condition and exacerbating the severity of the flu.

Exercising daily helps strengthen our immune system and keep our bodies healthier. However, when we have the flu, our bodies become sluggish due to fatigue and lethargy, leading to a lack of motivation to exercise or even move around. This laziness only prolongs the flu because the tiredness and sluggishness of our bodies provide an ideal condition for the illness to linger longer.

Exercising each morning or evening can make a significant difference to your body. Not only does it make you feel healthier and more energetic, but it also boosts your resistance to illnesses like the flu.

So, make sure to encourage yourself and your family members to exercise regularly!

Many people believe that smoking cigarettes during the flu can help clear nasal congestion and alleviate the cold symptoms, but this is a completely misguided assumption.

Cigarette smoke actually worsens the flu, not to mention the potential for serious respiratory illnesses such as throat cancer and lung cancer. Cigarette smoke disrupts the mechanism of clearing mucus from the tiny hairs in the lungs, gradually leading to pneumonia, bronchitis, sore throat, or prolonged cold symptoms.

Therefore, what you should do immediately when experiencing flu symptoms is to quit smoking. This is not only a way to make your body healthier but also to prevent cancer.

Nasal steaming with hot water or herbal remedies to clear the nasal passages is a common practice. Although moisture is beneficial for the nose, heat can exacerbate nasal inflammation.

Using nasal sprays for those with asthma needs to be ensured as sterile. Many people use this type of spray but do not recover from the condition because they react to the mold in the spray. The best way is to take a brief inhalation to clear the nose without steaming for an extended period.

Nasal steaming can expedite recovery for patients, but it's not always suitable. If a patient has had the flu for more than three days, symptoms persist, or there are signs of superinfection, steaming should be avoided and they should seek medical attention or visit reputable traditional medicine clinics for examination and treatment using other methods.

Typically, fluid administration is only applied to cases of flu accompanied by high fever and severe dehydration. However, in reality, there are many cases of flu where individuals self-administer fluids without consulting a doctor. This is extremely dangerous as it can lead to shock, electrolyte imbalance, pulmonary edema, or even death if not promptly treated, rather than just prolonging the flu and recovery time.

The flu usually occurs in winter, especially during sudden weather changes, and the body greatly needs water for metabolic processes and to prevent dehydration. While fluid supplementation is necessary, you should not self-administer fluids or any unfamiliar substances without the consent of a doctor.

Moreover, fluid administration for flu treatment can lead to swelling at the injection site and, more seriously, can cause shock and death if not promptly treated. Symptoms of water shock may include shivering, pale face, profuse sweating, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, etc.

Nasal sprays only provide immediate relief from symptoms like difficulty breathing and nasal congestion caused by the flu, but they cannot cure the root cause of the illness. However, if you use nasal sprays continuously for 7 days or more, it can lead to adverse effects due to medication use.

As nasal congestion may worsen, the nasal passages may become narrower, requiring you to use more medication. And nasal congestion symptoms may not only persist but also lead to a condition called

“nasal spray addiction”, where you are forced to use higher doses of medication and cannot tolerate not using it.

This situation becomes a vicious cycle, making you use the medication multiple times, leading to the formation of scar tissue in the nasal mucosa and nasal inflammation due to medication use.

If you suspect that you are dependent on nasal sprays, it is best to visit an otolaryngologist to assess your health condition. Only then can the doctor provide further instructions for you.

12. Misdiagnosing Illness

Flu and Common Cold are both common illnesses, most of us will experience them at least once in our lifetime. However, many people confuse between the flu and the common cold and resort to improper treatment methods. So, how do you differentiate between the flu and the common cold?

The symptoms of the flu and the common cold are quite similar, causing many people to confuse and underestimate them, leading to the progression of the disease and affecting health conditions considerably.

With the common cold, common symptoms include coughing, sneezing, a runny nose, nasal congestion, headaches, dizziness, slight fatigue, ...

If you have the flu, the symptoms are more obvious and severe, such as: headache, sore throat, dry and sore throat, fever from moderate to high, prolonged fatigue, nasal congestion and runny nose, more common symptoms in children include nausea and vomiting.

Although the symptoms may seem similar, it is clear that the flu is much more severe than the common cold and poses a risk of death. Therefore, you should never be complacent when you are sick and need proper treatment measures to avoid long-term impacts.

Treatment of the Common Cold

• The common cold can be treated with some types of medication such as Histamine, Acetaminophen, pain relievers, and anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve symptoms such as nasal congestion, headaches, ...
• In addition, providing adequate water and minerals for the body is extremely important. Remember to provide enough 1.5 to 2 liters of water per day, supplement vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc-rich foods, and minerals to help reduce symptoms and recover quickly.

Treatment of the Flu

• Similarly, with the flu, remember to drink enough water every day is very important, provide adequate essential nutrients and have a proper rest regime is one of the essential methods to overcome the disease.
• It is possible to alleviate the symptoms of the flu by using pain relievers such as Ibuprofen or Acetaminophen, and especially note to avoid using Aspirin in children as it may risk Reye syndrome (a syndrome that causes swelling of the liver and brain).
• Furthermore, medications may be prescribed when having the flu such as Oseltamivir, Zanamivir, or Peramivir. These are types of drugs that also help prevent the risk of pneumonia when having the flu.

In addition, to prevent the flu, it is best to get vaccinated regularly according to the doctor's instructions. Although they are common symptoms, if there is no improvement after 48 hours, see a doctor immediately. This is the best way for us to quickly eradicate the virus and protect our bodies.

13. Overuse of Antibiotics

Flu is a respiratory tract infection caused by a virus. When experiencing these conditions, symptoms can be alleviated by taking pain relievers and reducing fever.

However, many people have the habit of buying antibiotics whenever they have a cough, fever, runny nose due to flu, common cold, or even allergic cough due to weather changes or dust... While antibiotics only kill bacteria and are not effective against viruses. Therefore, antibiotics cannot be used to treat flu or other common viral illnesses, or regular coughs caused by viruses.

After having the flu, you may develop a bacterial infection (secondary bacterial infection). At this point, some signs of bacterial infection include pain around the face and eyes, coughing up thick, yellow or green mucus. If these symptoms persist or worsen every day, it is possible that the body is infected with bacteria, and you need to visit healthcare facilities for examination. At this time, the doctor will prescribe antibiotics if deemed necessary for treatment.

You should not self-medicate or misuse antibiotics without a doctor's examination and prescription, nor should you consider antibiotics as a miracle cure for the flu. Because self-medicating with antibiotics not only prolongs the illness but also leads to many complications.

Indiscriminate use of antibiotics also increases the risk of developing antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is extremely dangerous and may even lead to death from common infections in the future.

Therefore, to avoid consequences and use medication safely, when you are sick, you need to see a doctor to use the right medication. When prescribed antibiotics, you need to follow the doctor's instructions and take the prescribed dose correctly.