When I was a small child, a flu was a flu and a cold was a cold. They were very different. A cold always stayed in your sinus, head, and throat area. No fever, but some fatigue. It was mild enough that you could pop an OTC prescription and toddle off to work fairly easily. They lasted 3-7 days. Upper Respiritory Infections were just that. They were like a cold, but were either all, or at least mostly in your chest. They lasted about a week or so. They made you feel ucky. Sometimes they could brew into a wicked bacterial infection and bronchitis ... or worse. But they were relatively harmless. Then there was the flu. Nothing was like the flu. The flu hit you like a ton of bricks, with aches, pains, high fever, coughing, sneezing, etc. You were out for the duration and its effects always took about 10 days. You were fatigued and felt like you were hit by a truck for days after that. There was no confusion between a cold and flu. Today, I've noticed that people use the term flu, cold, uri interchangebly. People get severe colds and they'll call it the flu. Or they'll get an uri and call it a cold. In modern times we have umpteen variations of colds, uri, and other virus's. It seems like rarely do you get a simple, mild cold. The colds seem much more severe today and with multiple symptoms than long ago. The flu is still the flu. But as I said, with such a large spectrum of virii out there ... things seem to run together and get mislabled. I am writing because so many times we read that "ferrets can't get colds, the only get the flu". Well, too many times we don't know what we have. Too many times, we've had what appears to be a bad cold and wella ... the ferrets get it. I think this is why some people believe that ferrets can indeed get colds (rhinovirus), not just flu. I think that sometimes a flu nowadays can be mild, and mistaken for a cold or an URI. Sean came home with the flu. We thought it was a bad cold. He seemed to bounce right back from it and never spoke of aches and pains. Well a few days after he had this "bug", two other people in the house came down with a full blown flu at the same exact time. All within the expected incubation time. So now, we know Sean did have a flu. It was too late. We thought it was a cold. So Sean was allowed to visit the ferrets. And we werent' very careful around them when we visited them. The ferrets ended up sicker than I had ever seen them in 8 years. Those poor things. They went through hell for almost the entire 10 days. So this is my warning. I think we should warn people to be careful about any type of virus that hits our head or chest area. If you get a "bug" in those areas, treat the situation as it were the flu. I think this is one of the few and only times we need to not be so picky about scientific terms, syntax, etc anymore. My worry is that people will be lax around their pets because they think they don't have the flu and they do. Just like we did. Had we any compromised or older ferrets, this would have been awful. So, can we just say that they pick up respiratory virus's such as the flu? And becareful when you have a cold in case its a little more than a cold?? And maybe drop the forceful, "They don't get colds" thing? Elaborate more with people? Tell them to error on the side of caution? I really think this is important. [Posted in FML 6247]