How To Know If It's A Cold Or A Sinus Infection - Nurse's Guide

If you've been plagued by a cold lately that seems to have hung on too long and wonder if now you have a sinus infection you may be right

. Often people get confused and think they have a cold when actually they have an acute sinus infection and no cold. Knowing the symptoms of both will help you decide whether you have one or both of them.

Let's say you feel pretty tired lately and have no energy, have a sore throat or slightly sore throat, and a runny nose. With these symptoms you could have either or both.

If you have a cold the most common symptoms are: congestion in your nasal area, a runny nose with clear drainage, sneezing, a sore throat with drainage dripping down into the back of your throat - called post nasal drip, and you could have a temperature ( fever if it a child, but usually not as an adult.) You could also have a cough or a headache.

A cold will typically last from three to seven days or so. A cold is caused by a virus and starts out slowly but gets worse the second day or so and starts to get better on the third or fourth day. You should be over it by seven days. If you find its hanging on then you may actually have a sinus infection as a complication of the cold. An infection in the sinuses untreated can hang on for up to three weeks.

Now if you have a sinus infection instead of a cold you'll have some of the above sinus symptoms. You could have sneezing, a slightly sore throat that is eliminated by gargling with warm salt water and post nasal drip - which is sinus drainage. Your drainage could be yellow but sometimes greenish and you may find some coming out of your nose. It may start out whitish. A sinus infection will likely be caused by fungus not bacteria and rarely a virus.

With an infection in the sinuses you could also have facial pain, tooth or upper jaw pain, pressure or pain behind the cheekbones, possibly lots of nose blowing and sometimes a sinus headache too depending on the location of the infection.

So treating a cold or sinus infection may involve some of the same treatment and hopefully natural treatment. You would not take antibiotics for either. Antibiotics won't help a virus or fungal infection. Focus on natural treatment for your sinus infection and for both make sure to boost your immune system with fruits and raw veggies. There are a lot of natural treatments you can use to get rid of a sinus infection and stop a cold.

by: Helen Hecker

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