In some cases, your healthcare provider may diagnose you with the flu (or at least recommend you be treated for infection) based on your symptoms, whether or not someone else in your household has the flu, or if cases of influenza are increasing in your area.
Prompt diagnosis of the flu is important, as the infection can have complications, especially for certain individuals. Treatments are available to reduce the duration and intensity of the illness.
Self-Checks
The main difference between a cold or upper respiratory infection and influenza is how the illnesses come on. While the first two tend to start slowly and gradually worsen over a few days, the flu progresses rapidly, typically starting with a headache that quickly escalates to severe body aches and fatigue.
Common flu symptoms include:
FeverFatigue/exhaustionCoughBody achesHeadacheChills
Even if you are convinced that you have the flu, you cannot diagnose yourself. Get a medical opinion to ensure that your self-assessment is accurate and that you are not dealing with another condition that may require treatment.
Physical Examination
Your healthcare provider will ask you what symptoms you have and how long you have been sick to determine next steps. Your healthcare provider will also look in your ears, nose, and throat and listen to your lungs with a stethoscope.
If flu activity is high in your area and your symptoms point to influenza, your healthcare provider may diagnose and treat you simply based on these assessments and an elimination of other causes.
Labs and Tests
There are many viruses that cause symptoms that are similar to those of the flu but will not respond to antiviral medications used to treat influenza.
Given this, your healthcare provider may also perform an in-office flu test to determine if your symptoms are definitely due to the influenza virus. The flu test is especially useful when flu activity is low in your area but your healthcare provider still thinks you might have it.
Rapid influenza tests can be run in the office and takes about 15 minutes to get results. The test typically involves a nasal or throat culture to determine whether influenza A or influenza B is present.
The rapid test is far more accurate in infants and becomes less and less accurate the older you get. In people over 70, the test sensitivity may be as low as 60%, all but erasing its benefits.
Other more accurate tests can identify which strain of influenza is circulating in an area (such as influenza A/H1N1, a.k.a. the “swine flu”), although they are almost exclusively used for research purposes.
These tests take longer to run but can help public health officials assess the severity of a flu outbreak, determine the best treatment options, and plan for future influenza vaccines.
A Word From Verywell
Even if your test is negative, if you have significant flu symptoms and flu activity is high in your area, your healthcare provider may still diagnose you with the flu to be on the safe side. Antiviral medications such as Tamiflu are most effective if started within the first 48 hours of the onset of symptoms.
You have been fever-free for 24 hours without taking a fever-reducing medication, such as Tylenol (acetaminophen), orIt has been four or five days since your symptoms started, and they have largely resolved
