Swine or seasonal?

I have always been told that its easy to tell if you have swine flu or seasonal flu but this just didn't seem apparent last week when I fell ill.

It was Sunday morning and I felt incredibly rough and realised that I had the usual symptoms of the flu. I awoke early Monday morning to find myself feeling worse and decided to double check my symptoms to see if it could be the dreaded swine flu.

The NHS web site lists sufferers of swine flu to possess some of the following:

• unusual tiredness,
• headache,
• runny nose,
• sore throat,
• shortness of breath or cough,
• loss of appetite,
• aching muscles,
• diarrhoea or vomiting.

I immediately diagnosed myself as having swine flu but thought I'd double check seasonal flu symptoms as well. These are:

• sudden fever (a temperature of 38°C/100.4°F or above),
• dry, chesty cough,
• headache,
• tiredness,
• chills,
• aching muscles,
• limb or joint pain,
• diarrhoea or stomach upset,
• sore throat,
• runny or blocked nose,
• sneezing,
• loss of appetite, and
• difficulty sleeping.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the symptoms seem incredibly similar and lead to you more confusion rather than a home diagnoses, deeming the past few minutes a waste of time!

I decided to properly assess my symptoms using the special "national pandemic flu service" which I thought would give me a more accurate description. It didn't. It gave me exactly the same symptoms list and within a few clicks I was being prescribed Tamiflu and told that I didn't even need to pick it up myself. It all seemed so simple which is great if you truly have it but I believe a lot of seasonal flu suffers may have taken it/will take it unnecessarily.

I believed I had swine flu as I am unfortunate enough to suffer with seasonal flu every year and realised that my breathing was becoming very difficult and painful which was a new symptom to me. However I don't believe that everyone will be able to identify the differences which could lead to a lot of money being wasted on unnecessary medication.