It’s cold and flu season.
Back to school, stress and cold weather can make us even more susceptible to the many respiratory viruses that circulate at school, work and in our homes.
Because colds and flu share many of the same symptoms, it can be difficult to tell them apart.
It’s important to differentiate your virus and know the several treatment options that are available for you.
Don’t let the changing season put a damper on your health – protect yourself from the
“not-so-hot” feeling that the fall and winter season can bring.
Listen in as Tammie Nyman, certified nurse practitioner, and Melanie Cole, MS, give you suggestions on how to make it through cold and flu season.
Selected Podcast
Tis The Season; Best Treatments For Cold vs. Flu
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about Tammie Nyman
Tammie Nyman, CNP - Family Medicine
Traveler, grandmother and outdoor enthusiast, Tammie Nyman, is a family nurse at the Allina Chaska Clinic. She has professional interests in caring for pediatric and young adult patients, and focuses her practice in women’s health and chronic disease management. Tammie’s patients appreciate her listening skills and her compassionate and holistic approach to their health care in which she provides education and coaching. Tammie loves all types of yoga for stress reduction, and backpacking, walking and travel for exercise and adventure – she’s even traveled to the Great Wall of China. Tammie’s best health advice is to “drink more water than you already do, don't skip meals and exercise at least five times a week.”Learn more about Tammie Nyman
Transcription:
Tis The Season; Best Treatments For Cold vs. Flu
Melanie Cole (Host): Well, it’s cold and flu season, but when your child are sick or when you come up with the symptoms, do you even know whether it’s a cold or flu, when you should go see a doctor, what are the all-natural remedies that people talk about? Do any of these really work? My guest today is Tammie Nyman. She’s a family nurse practitioner at the Allina Chaska Clinic. Welcome to the show, Tammie. Cold versus flu, tell us the difference right off the bat here.
Tammie Nyman (Guest): Sure. There are a couple of differences between cold and flu, but they have more similarities than differences, and so it’s often hard for families to tell the difference and to know when they should bring their child or they should come in themselves. First of all, they’re both viruses, so they both can include things like a cough, a runny nose, nasal congestion, things like headaches, body aches, sore throat. And they can both have fevers. One of the things we look at to differentiate between cold and flu is how high did the fever go and is the fever sustained. Generally speaking, if a temperature is less than 100.4, they’re not too worried about it, and that usually goes more along with a cold. But if the temperature’s greater than 100.4 then we tend to think a little bit more towards influenza, especially if it carries on for more than 24 hours.
Melanie: Okay. These things are going around. Obviously, the best prevention—we talked about this a lot of times—is hand washing. Tell us a little bit about how important hand washing is and how long you tell your patients to wash their hands.
Tammie: Well, hand washing is really the best prevention we have against spreading any type of virus or bacteria between people because our hands are often in the middle of covering our mouths or covering a sneeze, and so we get the bacteria and viruses on our hands. Or we touch a doorknob or a light switch or some other common thing in our homes and we pass it on to another person. Once it’s on your hands, you touch your eyes or your nose or your mouth, and that bacteria or virus can get transmitted very easily into your system. Hand washing is really key, and I usually tell people to sing a little tune to themselves when they are washing their hands, something like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “You Are My Sunshine,” just those simple little tunes. And really, you should start singing after you put the soap and the water on your hands. When the scrubbing time starts, start singing, and when you’re done singing those tunes, rinse your hands off and dry them. And you’ll be surprised how long we really are supposed to be washing our hands in order for it to be effective. Just spritzing a little water and a little soap on there and drying them quick is really not enough.
Melanie: Tammie, what is the best advice you have for people when they get so congested, chest and/or nasal congestion? You hear people walking around like this now, and you look at these sprays, these over-the-counter sprays you spray up there, but people say you can't use those for more than a few days or they will actually inflame your sinuses. Do you like a nasal irrigation? What do you do for those really congested days?
Tammie: Yeah. I know. I think there’s a couple of options. If you have other medical issues, decongestants aren’t always the most advisable things to take as an over-the-counter medicine. If you have problems, particularly with heart disease or high blood pressure, really check with your physician before taking any over-the-counter cold preparation. But for people who are otherwise healthy, decongestant like Suda ephedrine or phenylephrine are good options to help with that congestion. The other thing is that using a good, old-fashioned Neti pot also helps, and this is saline irrigation for your nose and sinuses, and they can be bought without a prescription at any pharmacy.
Melanie: Okay. So these are things you can try. What about for a cough? Cough's going around, the respiratory virus that’s going around all of the states right now, the CV 68, and it involves a cough. Honey for a cough? Can we use over-the-counter medications? What do we do there?
Tammie: You can. You can use over-the-counter medications. Different cough medicines do different things, and so you have to really read the bottle to see if it’s a cough depressant. A cough depressant will help the cough settle down and stay away, and that’s something you typically want to take at nighttime so you can sleep during that. Some of the nighttime over-the-counter cold preparations will have a cough depressant in them. Otherwise, simple remedies like a little bit of honey and some warm water, even just warm water itself or warm tea or a broth, all of those warm liquids can help settle not only a cough but a sore throat as well.
Melanie: What about blowing our nose? People, you hear them inhaling and sniffing constantly. Is there anything to the theory that you need to blow your nose instead of sniffing it in?
Tammie: When you sniff it in, you basically just end up swallowing it, so it’s really not that harmful to sniff it in. But blowing your nose, your body will demand that you do it or don't do it. It’s not good to blow your nose so hard that you could cause some bleeding in your nose, so you have to be careful of that. In that case, using something like the saline mist spray in your nose is something that can help to loosen that up as well.
Melanie: Okay. So we’ve come up with all of these things. Now, you mentioned -- we talked about hand washing. What about sanitizers, Tammie? Do you recommend that at this time of the year, everybody walk around with a little hand sanitizer and use it at the grocery store before we touch the handle or at the schools, that we send our kids to school with one of these little things?
Tammie: Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt, and we do know that some of those sanitizers are effective against bacteria and some viruses. So it certainly doesn’t hurt to do that, but it is not a substitute for washing your hands. That is much more important.
Melanie: And where the flu is concerned, if you catch it early enough, then there’s Tamiflu and things you can call your doctor about. Speak about the flu just a little bit.
Tammie: Yeah. Influenza can become a serious illness for people, especially people who are elderly, who are immuno-compromised with other illnesses, or for the very small children. And so, we do need to take it seriously. That’s one of the great reasons why we encourage people to get the flu shot. Even if you yourself have never had the flu, you’re otherwise healthy, you’re helping to protect other people in our environment that may not be able to tolerate the flu as well if they are to get it. So we really encourage that, first of all. Second of all, if somebody does get influenza, there’s a simple test that can be done in the office to check and see if it’s influenza A or B. And if you do come in with it in the first couple of days of the illness, we can prescribe Tamiflu, which doesn’t cure it, but it’s been shown to shorten the duration of the illness. It can also be given later in the illness, but it’s not as effective, and the research is a little muddier in that area.
Melanie: Tammie, what about the all-natural things out there? Vitamin C, Zinc, Echinacea, airborne. Now it’s a huge industry. Do you feel as a nurse practitioner that these things really do help to ward off a cold?
Tammie: You know, the complicated thing about those supplementations is that there isn’t a lot of really good research on them in the form of scientific study, which is really what we as medical professionals have to follow. Some of these things, like vitamin C, a modest amount of vitamin C, like 200 mg a day, have been shown to reduce the length of cold symptoms slightly. It doesn’t get rid of it, it doesn’t prevent it entirely, but it does help to maybe shorten it some. Echinacea is a very popular supplement, and there is no scientific evidence to show that it does treat or prevent colds at all. Things like zinc we have to be cautious of. There are some studies that do show that zinc can be helpful, but zinc, taken in too large an amount, can also be toxic. So some of those things, we have to be really careful, and of course, the manufacturing of some of those supplements is not regulated very well, and so you never know exactly what you’re getting.
Melanie: Tammie, in just the last couple of minutes, please give the listeners your best advice about this cold and flu season, preventing it and/or treating it if they do come down with something. And then tell them why they should come to Allina Health for their family care.
Tammie: Sure. My best advice is really very simple. It’s to see your doctor regularly in the first place; to get regular checkups, physicals, to eat a healthy, balanced diet; to maintain a regular weight; and keep yourself healthy in the first place. You will be far less susceptible. Managing stress is also another very important factor. If your stress level is very high, your immune system tends not to work as well, and so you can't fight off these infections when they come into your system. So, rest, drinking plenty of fluids, staying hydrated, washing your hands very frequently are all really important things to preventing yourself from getting ill. Certainly, if you do become ill, cover your cough and using your arm is a good way to go about not getting on your hand and spreading it that much. And staying home when you’re sick is very important. I say a good rule of thumb is as long as you’re of dripping or coughing frequently, you really should be staying home. Sometimes, the over-the-counter cold medicines can help some of those symptoms so you’re still able to work, but if you’re feeling lousy, stay home, rest, take care of yourself and help keep the rest of us healthy. And as far as Allina Health goes, Allina Health is a great organization to work for and it’s a great place to come receive your care. Here at the Chaska Clinic, we are very focused on family. We treat people from the time before they’re even born all the way until they’re quite elderly until the end of life. And we’re happy to see people at any of those stages. We have a number of providers, both men and women, who are eager to help your family stay healthy and to prevent disease.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You are listening to The Well Cast by Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org, that’s allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.
Tis The Season; Best Treatments For Cold vs. Flu
Melanie Cole (Host): Well, it’s cold and flu season, but when your child are sick or when you come up with the symptoms, do you even know whether it’s a cold or flu, when you should go see a doctor, what are the all-natural remedies that people talk about? Do any of these really work? My guest today is Tammie Nyman. She’s a family nurse practitioner at the Allina Chaska Clinic. Welcome to the show, Tammie. Cold versus flu, tell us the difference right off the bat here.
Tammie Nyman (Guest): Sure. There are a couple of differences between cold and flu, but they have more similarities than differences, and so it’s often hard for families to tell the difference and to know when they should bring their child or they should come in themselves. First of all, they’re both viruses, so they both can include things like a cough, a runny nose, nasal congestion, things like headaches, body aches, sore throat. And they can both have fevers. One of the things we look at to differentiate between cold and flu is how high did the fever go and is the fever sustained. Generally speaking, if a temperature is less than 100.4, they’re not too worried about it, and that usually goes more along with a cold. But if the temperature’s greater than 100.4 then we tend to think a little bit more towards influenza, especially if it carries on for more than 24 hours.
Melanie: Okay. These things are going around. Obviously, the best prevention—we talked about this a lot of times—is hand washing. Tell us a little bit about how important hand washing is and how long you tell your patients to wash their hands.
Tammie: Well, hand washing is really the best prevention we have against spreading any type of virus or bacteria between people because our hands are often in the middle of covering our mouths or covering a sneeze, and so we get the bacteria and viruses on our hands. Or we touch a doorknob or a light switch or some other common thing in our homes and we pass it on to another person. Once it’s on your hands, you touch your eyes or your nose or your mouth, and that bacteria or virus can get transmitted very easily into your system. Hand washing is really key, and I usually tell people to sing a little tune to themselves when they are washing their hands, something like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “You Are My Sunshine,” just those simple little tunes. And really, you should start singing after you put the soap and the water on your hands. When the scrubbing time starts, start singing, and when you’re done singing those tunes, rinse your hands off and dry them. And you’ll be surprised how long we really are supposed to be washing our hands in order for it to be effective. Just spritzing a little water and a little soap on there and drying them quick is really not enough.
Melanie: Tammie, what is the best advice you have for people when they get so congested, chest and/or nasal congestion? You hear people walking around like this now, and you look at these sprays, these over-the-counter sprays you spray up there, but people say you can't use those for more than a few days or they will actually inflame your sinuses. Do you like a nasal irrigation? What do you do for those really congested days?
Tammie: Yeah. I know. I think there’s a couple of options. If you have other medical issues, decongestants aren’t always the most advisable things to take as an over-the-counter medicine. If you have problems, particularly with heart disease or high blood pressure, really check with your physician before taking any over-the-counter cold preparation. But for people who are otherwise healthy, decongestant like Suda ephedrine or phenylephrine are good options to help with that congestion. The other thing is that using a good, old-fashioned Neti pot also helps, and this is saline irrigation for your nose and sinuses, and they can be bought without a prescription at any pharmacy.
Melanie: Okay. So these are things you can try. What about for a cough? Cough's going around, the respiratory virus that’s going around all of the states right now, the CV 68, and it involves a cough. Honey for a cough? Can we use over-the-counter medications? What do we do there?
Tammie: You can. You can use over-the-counter medications. Different cough medicines do different things, and so you have to really read the bottle to see if it’s a cough depressant. A cough depressant will help the cough settle down and stay away, and that’s something you typically want to take at nighttime so you can sleep during that. Some of the nighttime over-the-counter cold preparations will have a cough depressant in them. Otherwise, simple remedies like a little bit of honey and some warm water, even just warm water itself or warm tea or a broth, all of those warm liquids can help settle not only a cough but a sore throat as well.
Melanie: What about blowing our nose? People, you hear them inhaling and sniffing constantly. Is there anything to the theory that you need to blow your nose instead of sniffing it in?
Tammie: When you sniff it in, you basically just end up swallowing it, so it’s really not that harmful to sniff it in. But blowing your nose, your body will demand that you do it or don't do it. It’s not good to blow your nose so hard that you could cause some bleeding in your nose, so you have to be careful of that. In that case, using something like the saline mist spray in your nose is something that can help to loosen that up as well.
Melanie: Okay. So we’ve come up with all of these things. Now, you mentioned -- we talked about hand washing. What about sanitizers, Tammie? Do you recommend that at this time of the year, everybody walk around with a little hand sanitizer and use it at the grocery store before we touch the handle or at the schools, that we send our kids to school with one of these little things?
Tammie: Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt, and we do know that some of those sanitizers are effective against bacteria and some viruses. So it certainly doesn’t hurt to do that, but it is not a substitute for washing your hands. That is much more important.
Melanie: And where the flu is concerned, if you catch it early enough, then there’s Tamiflu and things you can call your doctor about. Speak about the flu just a little bit.
Tammie: Yeah. Influenza can become a serious illness for people, especially people who are elderly, who are immuno-compromised with other illnesses, or for the very small children. And so, we do need to take it seriously. That’s one of the great reasons why we encourage people to get the flu shot. Even if you yourself have never had the flu, you’re otherwise healthy, you’re helping to protect other people in our environment that may not be able to tolerate the flu as well if they are to get it. So we really encourage that, first of all. Second of all, if somebody does get influenza, there’s a simple test that can be done in the office to check and see if it’s influenza A or B. And if you do come in with it in the first couple of days of the illness, we can prescribe Tamiflu, which doesn’t cure it, but it’s been shown to shorten the duration of the illness. It can also be given later in the illness, but it’s not as effective, and the research is a little muddier in that area.
Melanie: Tammie, what about the all-natural things out there? Vitamin C, Zinc, Echinacea, airborne. Now it’s a huge industry. Do you feel as a nurse practitioner that these things really do help to ward off a cold?
Tammie: You know, the complicated thing about those supplementations is that there isn’t a lot of really good research on them in the form of scientific study, which is really what we as medical professionals have to follow. Some of these things, like vitamin C, a modest amount of vitamin C, like 200 mg a day, have been shown to reduce the length of cold symptoms slightly. It doesn’t get rid of it, it doesn’t prevent it entirely, but it does help to maybe shorten it some. Echinacea is a very popular supplement, and there is no scientific evidence to show that it does treat or prevent colds at all. Things like zinc we have to be cautious of. There are some studies that do show that zinc can be helpful, but zinc, taken in too large an amount, can also be toxic. So some of those things, we have to be really careful, and of course, the manufacturing of some of those supplements is not regulated very well, and so you never know exactly what you’re getting.
Melanie: Tammie, in just the last couple of minutes, please give the listeners your best advice about this cold and flu season, preventing it and/or treating it if they do come down with something. And then tell them why they should come to Allina Health for their family care.
Tammie: Sure. My best advice is really very simple. It’s to see your doctor regularly in the first place; to get regular checkups, physicals, to eat a healthy, balanced diet; to maintain a regular weight; and keep yourself healthy in the first place. You will be far less susceptible. Managing stress is also another very important factor. If your stress level is very high, your immune system tends not to work as well, and so you can't fight off these infections when they come into your system. So, rest, drinking plenty of fluids, staying hydrated, washing your hands very frequently are all really important things to preventing yourself from getting ill. Certainly, if you do become ill, cover your cough and using your arm is a good way to go about not getting on your hand and spreading it that much. And staying home when you’re sick is very important. I say a good rule of thumb is as long as you’re of dripping or coughing frequently, you really should be staying home. Sometimes, the over-the-counter cold medicines can help some of those symptoms so you’re still able to work, but if you’re feeling lousy, stay home, rest, take care of yourself and help keep the rest of us healthy. And as far as Allina Health goes, Allina Health is a great organization to work for and it’s a great place to come receive your care. Here at the Chaska Clinic, we are very focused on family. We treat people from the time before they’re even born all the way until they’re quite elderly until the end of life. And we’re happy to see people at any of those stages. We have a number of providers, both men and women, who are eager to help your family stay healthy and to prevent disease.
Melanie: Thank you so much. You are listening to The Well Cast by Allina Health. For more information, you can go to allinahealth.org, that’s allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.