Both diseases cause misery, and misery that can be roughly comparable. The symptoms are so close, says Dr. Kim Kezlarian, a family medicine physician at Ford Hospital in Sterling Heights, that the diseases are not necessarily distinguishable. Treatment is the same. Still, the difference between flu and a cold is like the difference between a gopher and a groundhog. A gopher, they say in Indiana, is a ground hog with a press agent.
Flu has stature.
No, the flu is a disease that commands attention and a certain amount of respect. People still talk about the great flu epidemic of 1918-19, but no one wants to hear about the cold you had last week. You can get sick as a dog from a cold, and feel as if you'd like someone to hit you over the head with a hammer, but you can't die from a cold. Rummaging around the medicine cabinet, she took two Advil and longed for sleep to come. A cold is a poor man's flu, she thought, drifting off into Advil-land.