How do you know it's flu and not cold that you have?

When you have the flu you will most likely have high fever, a lot of headaches, severe aches and pains. You may experience weakness and fatigue for up to three weeks. Usually you’ll experience very painful chesty coughs. The flu can lead to Sinusitis, bronchitis, ear infection, pneumonia and can be life-threatening.

Whereas the common cold is mostly a mild fever, occasional headaches, slight aches, stuffy nose, sneezing and sore throats.

This website will give you some more insight to the differences between a cold and a flu.

@NerdyKeith Yes. I posted the OP because they said on the news that Prince was suffering from a bout of flu, and that he was working through it anyway. Which tells me either he didn’t really have the flu or he really didn’t work through it.

Maybe Prince had flu-like symptoms and the real cause was not diagnosed.

You can’t move out of bed with the flu. No energy. High fever. Aches all over, which are relieved somewhat with drugs like ibuprofen that also lowers the fever. No congestion. A cough (usually not very severe, but it can be).

With a cold, you might start with a sore throat for 2 days, might not, then you get congested, blow your nose enough times to finish two boxes of tissues in a 4 days, and it usually is over with in 7 days start to finish. No fever in adults. Able to function, work, etc, but miserable doing it.

If you don’t know the difference between a cold and flu you haven’t had the flu, or had it so long ago you don’t remember. The flu knocks you on your ass.

I agree with @JLeslie. If you are on Facebook saying you have the flu then you don’t.

People use the word flu to describe a range of illness and symptoms. We will know more about the cause of Prince’s death after the PM

@JLeslie and @Stinley exactly.