How To Treat Flu

Although the flu is a rather common disease, its treatment and prevention are extremely hard, for two reasons. Firstly, because its symptoms are relatively close to the ones of a common cold, people tend to treat it with superficiality, thus allowing the virus to work its way through the entire body and cause its share of damage. The second reason for which flu is not easily treatable is that the virus responsible for flu is evolving through constant mutations each flu season and in its evolution cycles, it may become immune or more resistant to some of the medications and agents that previously worked well in treating it. Still, there have been a few treatment methods that generally work with all types of flu, so we’ll cover these ones first.

Conventional treatment

There are basically 2 types of flu treatments, the most widely spread branch being the conventional treatment one. This includes a general set of rules such as getting a lot of rest in order to soothe the fever that the flu caused, drinking a lot of liquids and avoiding toxic substances such as tobacco, alcohol and a set of specific medications. Obviously, it’s best if the treatment is done without leaving the house for a few days, since external factors such as bad weather, cold and aerial elements may prolong or even amplify the disease.

The conventional treatment method also contains medications such as acetaminophen, amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir or zanamivir. Acetaminophen is used to relieve fever and also to cure any muscle aches that the flu virus may cause. Amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir are specifically designed medications used for preventing and treating the flu and they have proven to be successful overall. However, the current flu virus, H3N2 has become increasingly resistant to rimantadine and amantadine. Whereas in 1994 it was concluded that only 1% of the H3N2 cases were resistant to these medications, by 2005 this resistance ratio was raised to 91% already. Oseltamivir and zanamivir are still highly efficient, but there’s no guarantee that the virus will not develop new and improved versions of itself that will become resistant or immune to these too.

Symptomatic treatment

Besides the conventional method, there is a second one called symptomatic treatment. This particular type of flu treatment is not recommended over conventional methods, since it will only handle one specific problem (symptom) of the disease, not fight the virus itself. For example, if a case of flu comes with symptoms such as a runny nose, headaches, fever and aching muscles, a combination of medications may be prescribed to treat each symptom particularly. And although these medications may stop the specific symptoms for the moment, the virus will be still active in the body and it will restart these symptoms as soon as the medication loses its effect. Even if you try using one of these specific symptomatic medications, make sure you also undergo some conventional treatment methods, since they are more reliable and effective.