When to seek TLC? When to seek doctor?

WASHINGTON (AP) — When is swine flu just miserable and when do you need a doctor?

If it’s hard to breathe, that’s an emergency. It’s the not-so-obvious cases that can have parents, or the sick of any age, fretting.

“There tends to be a lot of hysteria,” said Dr. Nathan Litman of the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “We should try to emphasize the prevention mode.”

Symptoms of any flu include fever of 100 degrees or more, cough, body chills and aches, congestion. Diarrhea and vomiting sometimes occur, particularly with the swine flu that doctors call the 2009 H1N1 flu.

Regardless of the strain, most people who otherwise are healthy need to stay home and rest, and get plenty of fluids, health officials agree.

But there’s a catch. Not everyone with swine flu gets a fever, making it hard to know if they’ve got that or a common cold.

But generally, people without a fever don’t get as sick.

Signs to seek emergency care include shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, confusion or seizures, persistent vomiting or inability to hold down liquids, bluish lips.

Who’s at higher risk from any kind of flu?

Pregnant women; people of any age with heart disease, asthma, diabetes and other chronic illnesses; children under 2; people over 65.

While the over-65 tend not to catch swine flu, they are prime targets of the regular winter flu.