How is influenza transmitted? What causes headaches when you have a cold?

The sudden change of weather from cold to hot, due to the failure to add or remove clothes in time, leads to a large temperature difference between the body and the outside temperature, coupled with busy work and lack of exercise, it is easy to cause a cold. Colds are usually accompanied by symptoms such as headaches, sore throats, and sneezing, which are very uncomfortable. Today we will popularize the transmission routes of influenza, hoping that it will be useful to everyone.

Contents of this article

1. How is influenza transmitted?

2. What causes colds and headaches?

3. What to do if you have a sore throat due to a cold

How is influenza transmitted?

The patient's cough, sneeze and saliva contain a large number of viruses. One cough contains 600,000 viruses. Inhaling influenza virus in the air is one of the ways of transmission.

Influenza patients cover their mouths with their hands when they cough or sneeze, and then touch door handles, elevator buttons, light switches, and transportation rings with their hands, allowing the virus to attach to them. After touching these places with their hands, they touch their own mouth, nose, and eyes, which will infect the body with the virus.

The virus will remain in the room for 2-3 hours when the patient coughs and sneezes, and then be inhaled into the body and infected. However, the possibility of airborne infection is actually much lower than droplet infection and contact infection.

What causes colds and headaches?

Cold headache caused by external factors

The sudden change of weather from cold to hot, due to the failure to add or remove clothes in time, leads to a large temperature difference between the body temperature and the outside temperature, which can easily cause colds. In addition, because the weather is getting colder or hotter, many people like to stay at home and do not go out for more exercise, which makes the body lazy, fails to promote blood circulation, and reduces the body's detoxification. When the toxins accumulated in the body are too high, the precursors of a cold appear, such as bloating, diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea and other symptoms. The above two reasons "cooperate" to cause a cold. If you do not go out for exercise, the air in the house is not circulating, and the human body does not breathe in fresh oxygen, it will also cause hypoxia in the head, causing headaches.

Internal factors of the body cause cold headaches

1. Cold and fever stimulate the nervous system and cause headaches

Fever stimulates the central nervous system and causes disorders. Many harmful metabolites such as lactic acid, carbon dioxide, potassium ions, etc. are produced in the body, which stimulate the nervous system and cause nerve pain reactions. In addition, when fever occurs, the sympathetic nerves are in an excited state and can produce a large amount of catecholamines. This substance acts on the nerves and causes internal circulation disorders. All of the above substances have the effect of causing pain and dilating blood vessels. The dilation of blood vessels affects the pain-sensing peripheral nerves of the blood vessels, thus causing headaches.

2. Low intracranial pressure headache

Headaches of low intracranial pressure rarely occur after a cold, but they often occur in weak female patients, slowly worsening, often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, dizziness, tinnitus, neck stiffness, blurred vision, etc. Headaches are clearly related to body position, appearing or aggravating when standing, and relieved or disappearing when lying down. Headaches often occur within 15 minutes after changing body position.

3. Headache caused by increased intracranial pressure

Pathogen toxins directly act on blood vessels, causing small blood vessels to dilate and paralyze, and increase permeability; infection and invasion of the meninges can cause inflammatory reactions and increased intracranial pressure headaches. As intracranial pressure increases, the pressure on the entire head also increases, causing a feeling of swelling and pain in the head.

4. Rhinogenic headache

The pathogenic factors themselves can also directly cause headaches, such as upper respiratory tract infection involving the paranasal sinuses leading to rhinogenic headaches. This type of headache has a certain location and time. For example, when you bend down, wear a tight collar, or exert all your strength, the venous pressure will increase, causing congestion in the nasal mucosa and worsening the headache.

What to do if you have a sore throat due to a cold

If you have a sore throat due to a cold, it means that your respiratory tract is likely to have been infected by the cold virus, and the virus infection will cause other complications. At this time, you should use medication reasonably under the guidance of a doctor to reduce inflammation and solve the problem of infection and inflammation as soon as possible. Here are some Chinese medicines with anti-inflammatory effects:

1. Honeysuckle, boil 20g honeysuckle in water and use it as tea or add 5-10g honeysuckle when making tea and drink it while it is hot. It has the effect of dispersing wind-heat and clearing blood toxins.

2. Sterculia lychnophora: decocted 3-5 pieces of Sterculia lychnophora in water or soaked in water as an immersion agent (can be soaked in water with other Chinese medicines with the same effect) and drunk. It has the effects of clearing heat and moistening the lungs, relieving sore throat and detoxifying, and moistening the intestines and promoting bowel movements.

3. Yellow chrysanthemum: brew 8-12 dried flowers with 40℃ water, pour out the first brew, then use boiling water to make tea for drinking. It has the effect of clearing away heat, removing dampness and relieving cough.