Flu season has arrived—and experts say it might be a rough one. Hopefully, you’re doing everything you can to fend off harmful viruses this year, from getting your annual flu shot to wearing a mask in public to washing your hands well and often. No one wants to ride out a hellish fever and cold sweats at home eating soup for days (the it-sucks-but-will-be-okay scenario) or develop one of the many flu complications that can make the illness even worse (the potentially serious scenario).
In many cases, people will catch the flu, feel like crud for a week, and still be fine. In other cases, the virus attacks the body so fiercely that other health problems arise—some so severe they can send a person to the hospital. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, out of the millions of Americans who came down with the flu between 2010 and 2020, anywhere between 140,000 to 710,000 were hospitalized annually, while 12,000 to 52,000 died from it each year.
“We all experience varying degrees of illness when we get a viral infection,” Khalilah Latrece Gates, MD, an associate professor of pulmonary and critical care at Northwestern Medicine, tells SELF. “On the one hand, you have the mild illness where you just have something similar to a really bad cold. And then you have the more severe flu,” she explains, which largely depends on how the influenza virus spreads within your body and how your immune system responds to it.
Depending on how your body handles the virus, as well as your personal health history, you may also end up with a complication of the flu. “A ‘complication’ is when another condition or disease manifests due to the fact that the person’s body is not at its most optimal state,” Darvin Smith, MD, the chief of infectious diseases and geographic medicine at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, tells SELF.
In other words, when your body is super occupied trying to fight off the flu, it’s more susceptible to other infections. Influenza can also worsen symptoms of underlying conditions you already have, adds Dr. Smith.
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Here are common flu complications to be aware of, who typically faces the highest risk, and what you can do to stay safe.
1. Bronchitis
In mild cases of the flu, the virus enters your body via the nose or mouth and infects the upper respiratory tract: the nasal cavity, sinuses, throat, and larynx. But sometimes it can spread to the airways that lead to the lungs, the trachea and the bronchi, which sets the stage for bronchitis.
If you develop this condition, you may find yourself coughing up mucus, feeling short of breath, and maybe even wheezing when you breathe. The intense bronchitis cough can be persistent, sometimes lingering for up to three weeks.
How it’s treated: Bronchodilators (inhalers) and cough suppressants (either prescription or over-the-counter) can help you manage discomfort and breathe easier while you ride it out.
2. Pneumonia
Pneumonia develops when an infection—which can be bacterial, fungal, or viral—inflames the air sacs in your lungs and causes them to fill up with fluid. When your body has a hard time fighting off the flu and the influenza virus is able to spread deeper into your airways, it can directly lead to this complication, says Dr. Smith. Even though the flu is a virus, research shows it’s common to develop a secondary infection of bacterial pneumonia, too.
Source: SELF
