RSV is the Respiratory Syncytial Virus. This is a virus that infects the lungs and the respiratory tract and which therefore may cause difficulties with breathing, as well as a number of other symptoms such as lethargy, fever, mucus production and more.
This is a highly common condition. In fact, by the age of two, most children will have been infected by RSV at some point. In older adults, the good news is that RSV is, therefore, milder and less easy to identify.
The other good news is that RSV will respond well to self-care measures and is generally self-limiting. All you need to do is to rest and take care of yourself and the condition will normally go away on its own. The tricky part about RSV is that it is difficult to distinguish from the common cold. The good news is that the treatment is essentially the same, so this largely should not matter!
In this post, we will take a look at nine of the most common symptoms of RSV in adults.
1. Fever
As with pretty much any infection, one of the most common symptoms of RSV in adults is fever. This causes a rise in temperature which in turn makes the individual feel hot and/or cold at the same time. Often you will experience a ‘cold sweat’. As long as the fever remains within a safe threshold however, a fever on its own is not necessarily a negative thing. In fact, the job of the fever is to make your body a less hospitable environment for the virus, so this should be helping you to recover more quickly in most cases.
That said, fevers can be dangerous if they cause dehydration due to the extreme heat and sweating. For that reason, it is very important that you drink water regularly in order to help yourself prevent this.
A fever is more common in children than in adults but can occur at any age.
