How can you tell it's a cold and not the flu?

“It is very difficult to distinguish the flu from other infections on the basis of symptoms alone.”
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms.htm

In my unprofessional opinion, I’d say that you have a cold, not the flu. I tend to associate the flu with fatigue, body aches, fever, and sometimes nausea.

Here’s a good article. For me I’d say cold’s are more respiratory – stuffy, sneezy, etc. Flus are more all-over symptoms, especially fevers, aching muscles.

Keep in mind that you antibiotics will help with neither. If it’s bad though you may want to see a doctor about meds that can help manage the disease/symptoms. Once I had the most horrible flu and a doctor prescribed Tamiflu that was a godsend. YMWV.

If it’s a cold you feel like you’re dying. If it’s the flu you know you are.

@Blondesjon
I can’t say that I’ve ever been that ill. My lineage has some resilient genes. The longest that I’ve been sick for was a week and a half with the flu. It was pretty horrible, but I didn’t think that I was dying.

With the flu your muscles ache and you have a fever.

With strep throat you have a fever but no muscle aches.

With a cold you don’t have fever or muscle aches.

With any or all of these you may also have a stuffy or runny nose, a sore throat, a headache or sinus ache, and a great need to lie down and sleep. You may also wish you were dead.

Of the three, the flu is the only one that actually could make you dead – in the US about 20,000 people die from the flu each year (some years are even higher). When I was about 7, the father of a friend of mine died from the flu. He was 32 years old.

Antibiotics only work on the strep throat.

Is it feed a cold, starve a fever?

@skfinkel – http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1126/is-it-feed-a-cold-starve-a-fever-or-vice-versa

With mostly URI (Upper Respiratory Infection) symptoms such as headache, sneezing, runny nose, cough, you likely have a cold. As others have said, influenza tends to be more of a total body experience, with fever, myalgias (muscle aches), headache, nausea, and anorexia (no appetite).

And the only thing that will relieve that fever is more cowbell.

If I can move, it’s a cold.

learn something new every day… I thought the difference was a just fever.

Isn’t Fluther great?