Cold season is just starting, and if you’ve been experiencing symptoms like a runny nose and congestion, you may be wondering if your symptoms are due to allergies or the common cold. To treat the condition, you need to know which it is, so let’s discuss the main differences.
What Is a Cold?
The common cold, as the name implies, is a common and widespread sickness: it’s estimated that adults come down with a cold two to three times a year on average, and children get it four or more times a year. It occurs when a virus invades the body, establishes itself in the upper respiratory tract, infects cells and begins to multiply. Your body activates the immune system to fight it off. The primary function of your immune system is to fight off viruses and other foreign invaders. It deploys white blood cells to fight off and destroy viruses.
Interestingly, the symptoms you experience are not caused by the virus itself, but rather by the immune system’s methods to fight back against the infection. For example, when you have a fever, the immune system is creating an environment in the body that is too hot for the virus to survive.
What Are Allergies?
Allergy symptoms are essentially a case of mistaken identity. Much like a cold, a foreign invader enters the body, and the immune system responds accordingly. However, the foreign invader is a harmless irritant—like dust, pollen or pet dander—that will not actively harm or infect the body, nor will it multiply and travel within it. However, the immune system interprets that irritant as a threat and activates to flush the invader out.
Once again, the symptoms you associate with allergies are actually the body’s defense mechanisms. With allergies, the immune system focuses less on destroying the invader and more on removal, such as flushing dust or pollen out of the nose with mucus, which causes a runny nose and sneezing.
How Symptoms Compare
- Both conditions are characterized by sneezing, stuffy nose, congestion, runny nose and fatigue.
- In addition to that, colds will also commonly cause a sore throat, cough, body aches, a decrease in appetite and sometimes a fever.
- Allergies are characterized by itchy, watery eyes, itchy nose and skin rash, along with the symptoms listed above for both.
Other Key Differences
- How quickly symptoms came on. Cold symptoms usually take a day or two to ramp up, typically starting with a sore throat and progressing from there. Allergy symptoms will hit all at once upon contact with the irritant.
- How long you’ve had symptoms. Colds have a beginning and an end, and typically resolve after one to two weeks. Allergy symptoms will last as long as you have exposure to the irritant in question, meaning they can last weeks or months.
- Contagiousness. Colds are contagious; allergies aren’t. If your symptoms appeared after you came into contact with someone who was sick, it’s likely a cold.
If you’re still unsure which condition is causing your symptoms, you can always discuss with an allergist or other healthcare professional. Call Carolina Ear Nose & Throat – Sinus and Allergy Center to learn more.