Seven common cold and flu complications

What com­pli­ca­tions can appear after a cold, viral infec­tion or flu? How to notice the first symp­toms and how to treat? Let’s find out!

bur­da media

1. Pain in the ear

A com­mon com­pli­ca­tion of acute res­pi­ra­to­ry viral infec­tions is oti­tis media — inflam­ma­tion of the mucous mem­brane of the mid­dle ear cav­i­ties and the tym­pan­ic mem­brane. It occurs when an infec­tion trav­els through the audi­to­ry tube from the nose into the ear cav­i­ty. Symp­toms of the dis­ease are as fol­lows: severe pain in the ear, which radi­ates to the head and teeth, tem­per­a­ture 38–39 ° C, hear­ing loss, tin­ni­tus. Peri­od­i­cal­ly, pus may come out of the ear, after which the pain sub­sides. The dan­ger is that the acute form can become chron­ic, and this some­times leads to hear­ing loss. There­fore, it is so impor­tant to start treat­ment right away — the doc­tor will pre­scribe antibi­otics, ear and nose drops, painkillers and anti-inflam­ma­to­ry drugs. After recov­ery, be sure to check your hear­ing to rule out inflam­ma­tion of the audi­to­ry nerve.

2. Pain in the eyes, tearing

Painful sen­sa­tions in the eyes occur due to high tem­per­a­ture and intox­i­ca­tion. Influen­za is char­ac­ter­ized by a symp­tom of red eyes, when the whites turn bright red due to the expan­sion of numer­ous small blood ves­sels. With ade­n­ovirus infec­tion, thin gray­ish films appear on the inner sur­face of the eye­lids and in the cor­ners of the eyes. Spe­cial treat­ment is usu­al­ly not required. Anoth­er thing is if bac­te­r­i­al con­junc­tivi­tis occurs, the main symp­tom of which is stuck togeth­er eye­lids in the morn­ing. Then the doc­tor will pre­scribe rins­ing and drops. The main rule for inflamed eyes is peace, there­fore, dur­ing the ill­ness, it is bet­ter to give up the TV, com­put­er and books, and also avoid too bright light­ing.

bur­da media

3. Bruises and nosebleeds

Most often this is due to the dry­ing of the nasal mucosa in a room with dry air. In addi­tion, expo­sure to virus­es weak­ens the walls of blood ves­sels, mak­ing the cap­il­lar­ies frag­ile. They bleed eas­i­ly when you blow your nose or sneeze.

If your nose bleeds a lot, in no case do not throw your head back! First of all, calm down. Sit with your head tilt­ed slight­ly for­ward to keep blood from run­ning down your throat. Press the nose just below the bridge of the nose with two fin­gers and place a cool object on the sides of the nose. After 10 min­utes, loosen your fin­gers and if the bleed­ing has not stopped, do the whole pro­ce­dure again. And if that does­n’t help, call an ambu­lance.

If you eas­i­ly get bruis­es on your body, it makes sense from the very begin­ning of the dis­ease to take vit­a­mins C and P or ascorutin for pre­ven­tion — these vit­a­mins strength­en the walls of blood ves­sels.

4. Pain in the heart

Even if ARVI pass­es with­out fever, then after a week or two weak­ness, short­ness of breath may appear — this is how post-viral myocardi­tis (inflam­ma­tion of the myocardi­um) man­i­fests itself. Be sure to see a car­di­ol­o­gist and do an ECG. In addi­tion to the main treat­ment that your doc­tor will pre­scribe, you will def­i­nite­ly need a spar­ing reg­i­men. In no case do not load the heart with phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al stress, so that chron­ic pathol­o­gy does not occur. Minor heart fail­ure can go away on its own, it just takes the body some time to recu­per­ate. It is very use­ful dur­ing this peri­od to sup­port the heart with herbal infu­sions of moth­er­wort and hawthorn.

bur­da media

5. Drawing pains in the lower back

If the tem­per­a­ture jumped and at the same time back pain appeared, most like­ly an inflam­ma­to­ry process in the kid­neys (pyelonephri­tis) began. But some­times it is almost asymp­to­matic, but pay atten­tion to how often you go to the toi­let and how much flu­id comes out. If you notice that the urge has become less fre­quent and there is less urine, there is cause for alarm. How­ev­er, when the inflam­ma­to­ry process inten­si­fies, it will be the oth­er way around: more fre­quent urges, more urine.

With­out a gen­er­al urine test, it will not be pos­si­ble to rec­og­nize pyelonephri­tis (in this case, an increased con­tent of leuko­cytes will be found in it). And the treat­ment will be antibi­otics, herbal urosep­tics, herbal kid­ney teas. Also, the rea­son for an urgent vis­it to the doc­tor should be flakes (tur­bid­i­ty) in the urine, pain dur­ing uri­na­tion.

6. Abdominal pain, intestinal upset

Some­times, along with a sore throat and a run­ny nose, nau­sea and loose stools appear, less often vom­it­ing. In such cas­es, doc­tors talk about viral diar­rhea, which can be trans­mit­ted like a com­mon cold — by air­borne droplets. How­ev­er, the main infec­tion occurs as with ordi­nary food poi­son­ing — through dirty hands and uten­sils. Help lies in the fre­quent replen­ish­ment of flu­ids. Cook com­pote from dried apri­cots, strain, add a tea­spoon of salt, 1/2 tea­spoon of soda and a table­spoon of sug­ar (per 1 liter). Drink in small sips through­out the day, alter­nat­ing with plain water.

7. Aching pain in the bridge of the nose

Espe­cial­ly if it increas­es with tilt­ing the head, sinusi­tis can be sus­pect­ed. With this dis­ease, there are also a num­ber of symp­toms: headache and toothache, nasal con­ges­tion, dis­charge from the nose with an unpleas­ant odor, the tem­per­a­ture ris­es to 37.5 ° C, pain is felt when pres­sure is applied to the cheeks and fore­head. Usu­al­ly the treat­ment is com­plex: antibi­otics plus mucus thin­ners. In addi­tion, it is impor­tant to reg­u­lar­ly rinse the nose with a solu­tion of sea salt and use vaso­con­stric­tor drops. It is nec­es­sary to start treat­ing acute sinusi­tis as soon as pos­si­ble to pre­vent the infec­tion from spread­ing beyond the sinus­es, and with prop­er ther­a­py it will pass in a week.

pho­to­lia

8. Cough, sweating and weakness

No won­der the inner sur­face of the res­pi­ra­to­ry tract is cov­ered with epithe­li­um, whose task is to detain all unin­vit­ed guests (bac­te­ria and virus­es). The body begins to fight from the very first hours, but if the infec­tion drops below, it can cause tra­cheitis, bron­chi­tis or even pneu­mo­nia. When, against the back­ground of a small or already nor­mal tem­per­a­ture, there was a sharp increase in it, chest pain, severe weak­ness, sweat­ing appeared, and the cough became painful, urgent­ly con­sult a doc­tor. Please note that with pneu­mo­nia, the tem­per­a­ture is not always high, but short­ness of breath and weak­ness will be nec­es­sary. The doc­tor should lis­ten to your lungs, may order addi­tion­al tests and x‑rays. Of the drugs — anti-inflam­ma­to­ry, expec­to­rant, anti­his­t­a­mines. Antibi­otics for bron­chi­tis are pre­scribed only at high tem­per­a­tures and yel­low-green (puru­lent) spu­tum, but with inflam­ma­tion of the lungs, one can­not do with­out their load­ing dos­es.

READ MORE:

SARS, influen­za and colds: how do they dif­fer?

Colds: Symp­toms and Treat­ment

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