How can you tell difference between bacterial/viral sinus infection?

How can you tell difference between bacterial/viral sinus infection?
How can you tell the difference? Without going to your doctor, I have had a "sinus infection" or head cold for 7 days now. It is getting better though and I have not been on any antibiotics, but I am still extremely stuffed up (especially my ears) How can you tell the difference if it's bacterial or viral? Thanks.

Best answer:
You can't tell the difference by yourself. Well, unless you happen to have a pathology lab in your basement, then you might be able to tell.

You'd have to culture the offending microbe to figure out what you've got.

What do you think? Answer below!Cure a Viral Infection

Antibiotics are useless against viral infections. This is because viruses are so easy to use host cells to carry out their activities for them. Therefore, antiviral drugs work differently to antibiotics, by interfering with viral enzymes instead.

Effective antiviral drugs are currently only against certain viral diseases such as influenza, herpes, hepatitis B and C and HIV - but research is ongoing. A natural protein called interferon (which the body produces to help fight viral infections) can be produced in the laboratory and used to treat hepatitis C infections.

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Immunization against viral infection is not always possible
It is possible to vaccinate against many serious viral infections such as measles, mumps, hepatitis A and hepatitis B. An aggressive vaccination campaign throughout the world, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), succeeded in eliminating smallpox. However, some viruses - such as those causing the common cold - are capable of mutating from one person to another. This is how an infection with essentially the same virus can evade the immune system to maintain. Vaccination of these types of viruses is difficult because the virus has changed its format for the time vaccines have been developed.

Where to get help

* Your doctor
* Your pharmacist

Things to remember

* Many human diseases are caused by infection with either bacteria or viruses.
* Most bacterial diseases can be treated with antibiotics, despite the strains resistant to antibiotics are beginning to emerge.
* Viruses pose a challenge to the body's immune system because they hide inside cells.
* It is possible to be vaccinated against some of the major viruses that cause diseases (such as measles and polio) as well as bacterial diseases such as Hemophilus influenza type b (Hib), tetanus and whooping cough.

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