Feeling Under The Weather? You're Not Alone

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Doctors offices have been inundated the past few days with patients suffering from upper respiratory illnesses.

Santa Ana resident Olga Bautista said her family has been passing around a virus.

"He started vomiting for two days, then it came to me, and now to him," said Bautista, pointing to her two sons. "Just my nose, it was all here, headaches and stuff, sore throat."

Doctors say most of these patients will recover just fine and that they aren't experiencing the flu.

"It is normal this time of year. We see a large amount of other kinds of upper respiratory infections: runny nose, sore throat, cough," said Dr. Carl Shultz, an attending physician at University of California, Irvine Medical Center. "Most of those people are not really ill. They generally don't have fevers and there's no risk to their health. They're going to do fine, regardless."

Shultz stresses that having a flu feels much worse than having a cold, which is much less debilitating. Those with a cold will likely only experience a runny nose, sore throat, a cough and some general body aches. Those with a cold will either have no fever or a low fever around 99.5 or 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

They may not have the flu but the Bautistas say they are feeling terrible.

"I feel yucky," Sebastian Bautista said. "My head, my stomach and my neck [hurt]."