In line with its mission, the Editorial Board of MedTvoiLokony makes every effort to provide reliable medical content supported by the latest scientific knowledge. The additional flag “Checked Content” indicates that the article has been reviewed by or written directly by a physician. This two-step verification: a medical journalist and a doctor allows us to provide the highest quality content in line with current medical knowledge.
Our commitment in this area has been appreciated, among others, by by the Association of Journalists for Health, which awarded the Editorial Board of MedTvoiLokony with the honorary title of the Great Educator.
Acute rhinitis, i.e. a runny nose accompanying a cold, is often confused with hay fever, i.e. allergic rhinitis. Although the symptoms are about the same, the causes and treatments are different.
The cause of colds are viruses circulating in the air, which are usually transmitted by airborne droplets. They cause frequent sneezing and scratching in the nose. After several hours, a profuse, greenish or yellowish discharge from the nose appears, usually accompanied by an increased body temperature.
Most often, such a runny nose attacks us in the fall or spring and is contagious. As the folk saying goes – untreated it lasts seven days, and treated only one week.
The guilty ones: pollen and dust
Hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, is not contagious and is not caused by viruses. It can last for weeks or even a whole year, when it is caused by the constant contact of the body with an allergen that remains in the air for a long time, e.g. pollen from flowering plants or house dust mites. The discharge from the nose is colorless and watery, usually abundant and does not thicken after a few days as with an ordinary runny nose.
Hay fever is accompanied by bouts of sneezing, as well as itching and redness of the eyes, often turning into conjunctivitis. Characteristic is also the lack of elevated body temperature or very little change in it.
When to see a doctor?
In the case of common cold, it is enough to rest at home, drink plenty of water and brew linden tea with raspberry juice. However, if after a week the runny nose still does not go away and nothing indicates a developing infection, it is worth visiting a doctor. He or she may order a series of diagnostic tests (skin tests or blood levels of IgE immunoglobulins) to find the culprit: the allergen responsible for hay fever symptoms.
| 10000101 | C0000104AC | 0000101 | C0000104AC Acute rhinitis (runny nose) | 0000101 | C0000104AC Allergic rhinitis (hay fever) |
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Incidence of the disease during the year | Irregular different months of the cold season | Usually seasonal (spring and summer) when pollinating plants or sudden, e.g. after contact with cat hair | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103ALPrzyczyna | Viruses | Contact zalergen | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Onset of first symptoms | Increasing over the course of a few or a dozen hours | Usually sudden following exposure to zalergen (e.g. several hours after petting a cat) | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Infectiousness | High | Lack | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103ALKatar | Initially watery, thickening in the afternoon, often greenish | Abundant, colorless and watery, all the time sparse, intensifying on contact with zalergen (e.g. when going out of the house when the plants are pollinated) | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Body temperature | Elevated or high | Usually normal, rarely higher | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Duration | About 7 days | Many weeks for plant allergens (pollen) or even a full year (for house dust and pet hair allergies) | ||
| 10000100 | L0000103AL Accompanying symptoms (redness and itching of the eyes, paroxysmal sneezing, conjunctivitis, itching in the nose) | Do not occur | They are distinctive, strong and clear |
Prepared by Rafał Jabłoński, MSc in pharmacy (based on materials from the Pharmaceutical and Medical Portal and Medserwis)
Source: Let’s live longer