Cold or allergic rhinitis?

Cold or allergic rhinitis?

Admittedly, a series of sneezes with each time one crosses a cat or systematically at the beginning of April, directs easily towards an allergic rhinitis. Just like a good cold after a cooling. But in many other cases, it is not always also simple to differentiate them.

How to differentiate an infectious rhinitis usually called cold, of an allergic rhinitis which one calls also hay cold?

Rhinitis: virus or allergen?

First is due to a virus, the second with an allergen (pollens, dust, hairs of animals, acarina…). Certain symptoms are common, as the nose which runs, the sneezes or the stopped nose. Other symptoms, on the other hand, are specific to one or the other of the rhinitides and can thus make it possible to make the difference rather clearly.

A few days or several months?

The duration can already help to make the difference. A cold lasts one week, while the allergic rhinitis can disappear in a few days like lasting for ever several months.
In the event of allergic rhinitis, the sneezes have the characteristic to start in salvos, while a cold causes only some sneezes by-Ci by-there.

Nose which scrapes?

The other typical signs of the allergic rhinitis are itchings and tinglings of the nose. But often, the eyes also are touched: irritations, whimperings, red eyes.

As for the cold, it often generates headaches.

Why is this important to differentiate these two rhinitides? Quite simply to be able to quickly set up a treatment adapted to make disappear symptoms and if necessary a strategy from avoidance of the allergen.

To summarize

Allergic rhinitis
Allergens
A few days in a few months
Sneezes in salvos
Nasal flow
Nasal obstruction
Itchings and tinglings of the nose
Often: irritations of the eyes with whimperings, tinglings, itchings, redness.

Cold
Virus
1 week
Some sneezes
Nasal flow
Nasal obstruction
No itchings
Often: headaches