ARS...Help! - TheBody.com's Bulletin Boards

ARS is described as flu-like symptoms. Not flu/cold symptoms. It’s a common thing for people to mistake the two. The symptoms are very similar. Just as the symptoms for ARS are very similar and people sometimes think they had ARS when it was just a cold OR flu.

The biggest difference between the two is the fever. If you didn’t have a high fever that knocked you off your feet, then what you had was a horrible cold. They do exist. Colds can make you miserable for weeks.

I think my fever was around 102 -103 when I was sick. My eyes felt they were burning out of their sockets. I know I would have had to have been dead a few days before I would have felt better. I remember it came on very quickly. When I went to work in the morning I felt great, by 2 in the afternoon it was all I could do to drive myself home and crawl in bed. I stayed there until Sunday. I remember that weekend well. It was Thanksgiving weekend, I was supposed to have everyone over for dinner Thursday. Didn’t happen. I was too sick to even look at food, much less get up and cook it. By Tuesday I was back at work and feeling pretty well. I still felt a little worn out from being sick, but all the symptoms had gone by then. I’d had colds and flus before and had felt like [censored] before, but this one was the mother of all flus and I had never felt this sick in my life. Looking back on it, I remember that no one else at work or at home had been sick and no one at work or at home caught my ‘flu’ from me.

It doesn’t do any good to focus on symptoms. Too many times people misdiagnosis themselves. I mean, here I was with ARS and I thought it was just the Flu. You probably had a bad cold plus stress (diarrhea, is common symptom of stress) and think it’s ARS. Go figure.

http://www.drgreene.com/21_577.html
The differences between a cold and flu

Classically, the flu begins abruptly, with a fever in the 102 to 106 degree range (with adults on the lower end of the spectrum), a flushed face, body aches, and marked lack of energy. Some people have other systemic symptoms such as dizziness or vomiting. The fever usually lasts for a day or two, but can last five days.

Somewhere between day 2 and day 4 of the illness, the "whole body" symptoms begin to subside, and respiratory symptoms begin to increase. The virus can settle anywhere in the respiratory tract, producing symptoms of a cold, croup, sore throat, bronchiolitis, ear infection, and/or pneumonia.

The most prominent of the respiratory symptoms is usually a dry, hacking cough. Most people also develop a sore (red) throat and a headache. Nasal discharge and sneezing are not uncommon. These symptoms (except the cough) usually disappear within 4 to 7 days. Sometimes there is a second wave of fever at this time. The cough and tiredness usually lasts for weeks after the rest of the illness is over.

The common cold is centered in the nose.

Over 200 different types of viruses can cause a cold. Rhinoviruses, which means "nose viruses", are the most common cause. Respiratory syncitial viruses (RSV) and a host of others can produce colds. Of note, influenza viruses occasionally cause illnesses with symptoms of the common cold.

The three most frequent symptoms of a cold are nasal stuffiness, sneezing, and runny nose. Throat irritation is often involved (but not with a red throat). Adults and older children with colds generally have minimal or no fever. Infants and toddlers often run a fever in the 100 to 102 degree range.

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