If you’ve suffered a bout of the sniffles over the past fortnight, you could be forgiven for assuming it was just a cold.
But experts have now warned that the winter cold you thought you’d come down with may actually be a sign of something far more serious.
Cold symptoms often include a runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, fatigue and a blocked nose.
However, if you experience these for longer than three weeks, you must visit your GP, Thorrun Govind, a TV pharmacist and former chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said.
She told The Sun there were four red flag signs that should see you seek medical help — having a ‘high fever’ that persists beyond the first few days, plus ‘having difficulty breathing or chest pain’.
Brits have long told how they have mistaken serious illnesses such as heart conditions and even certain cancers like thyroid as signs of a lingering cold.
Earlier this month ultra-marathon running academic revealed the swollen glands in his neck after having ‘a bit of a cold’ were a sign of squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil — a type of throat cancer— caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
Graphic shows the common symptoms (green tick), occasional and possible symptoms (orange circle) and the symptoms that never occur (red cross) with the common cold, flu and Covid
Anson Mackay, who lives in east London , initially contacted his GP in January 2020 when he was left with swollen glands in his neck for weeks
Scans then revealed he had squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil — a head and neck cancer — caused by human papillomavirus ( HPV)
Anson Mackay, who lives in east London, had intensive weeks of radiotherapy treatment that saw him celebrate having ‘no evidence of disease remaining’ by August 2020.
But just a year later the now 57-year-old was dealt the devastating blow after scans revealed it had spread and he was diagnosed with stage 4 HPV cancer across both lungs.
After two years of successful immunotherapy treatment his cancer is stable, with no current evidence of disease showing on scans.
Last year, Abi Phillips also told how at 28-years-old she suddenly found two lumps in her neck.
But during an emergency GP appointment, the nurse said she had ‘absolutely nothing to worry about and I was probably getting over a cold or illness’, she claimed.
It was only after paying for a private scan days later that she discovered she had thyroid cancer.
She underwent surgery to remove her thyroid and all of her lymph nodes from the right side of her neck, as well as radioactive iodine treatment.
And in September a woman from Lancashire said her ‘flu’ symptoms turned out to be the telltale signs of a little-known, aggressive cancer that affects one in a million people.
Abi Phillips underwent surgery for thyroid cancer after discovering two lumps which appeared ‘overnight’ in her neck
Abi Phillips, left, with former Love Island contestant Demi Jones, who was also diagnosed with thyroid cancer about a year after first entering the villa
Emma Snape (left), 34, began to come down with traditional cold-like symptoms last February, which quickly escalated, landing her in hospital
Emma Snape, 34, began to come down with traditional cold-like symptoms last February, which quickly escalated, landing her in hospital.
Doctors at first diagnosed pneumonia, a serious and sometimes life-threatening lung infection.
Yet further tests showed the underlying illness to be epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) — an extremely rare form of cancer than forms in the cells that line the blood vessels.
When Emma was diagnosed, doctors found 20 nodules in her lungs and more in her omentum — the fatty tissue extends from the stomach to the intestines.
Experts also cautioned there were several factors that could explain why colds seem to be lingering longer this winter.
One major reason may be because it was never a common cold in the first place and could in fact be Covid, RSV or HMPV.
Cases of RSV have been much higher this winter than in other years.
Latest weekly NHS data shows that RSV — which is most common in infants and young children — was up 91 per cent on the same period in 2024.
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Experts have cautioned that hMPV, which produces flu-like symptoms, can lurk in the body for days and so it can be easily passed on to others
Separate UK Health Security Agency data shows one in 20 hospital patients tested for respiratory infections in England were positive for human metapneumovirus (hMPV) as of January 13.
This is the highest figure for the winter season so far, and double what UK health officials recorded at the start of December.
‘HMPV may cause cold-like symptoms but this should not leave you feeling too ill,’ Dr Simon Clarke, an infectious disease expert University of Reading told The Sun.
‘We’ve seen this virus every year for decades so we have pretty good immunity to it already.’
Cold weather may also reduce the immune response and make it harder for the body to fight off germs.
‘Being tired, stressed or not eating healthy can also weaken the immune system, and leave you more vulnerable to picking up a second infection,’ Ms Govind also said.
