It can’t be flu, can it?

I’ve felt really unwell for past few days. Had a sore throat, waking up in night, no energy

also affected my stomach

fortunately not at work so have rested

Low zinc levels (which can happen when fighting an infection) can cause this

i would look at testing your zinc - for about £10 on amazon

I tested positive for covid with your symptoms

I've tested positive 2x - never lost my sense of smell or taste.

Do you find your ‘normal’ has changed? Ie, I can’t taste but now enjoy textures instead. It’s as if my brain has changed the way I enjoy my food to compensate for no longer enjoying taste.

I lost my taste and smell back in 2020 with a bout of Covid, and still haven’t got it back. Social media was, and still is, full of people who had this symptom. I think it’s more common than what people think. Buttrue, not everyone with Covid loses taste/smell.

I’m thinking I have flu but if there was a £50 note in my garden I would try and crawl out to it cos of col. not being able to get a £50 note was my original indication of flu but not anymore

negative for COVID

If someone catches flu who has had the flu jab (and so get it mildly) and are still mixing with other people, are they just as likely to pass it on as someone who is contagious with it who HASN'T had the jab?

I had Covid, albeit mildly, right at the start and my sense of taste has never come back properly. It's nowhere near as good as it used to be.

How come you tested?

I remember having flu when I was about 14. Apart from the severity (hallucinating, needing my mum to help me to the loo as my legs could barely hold me), it was the sudden onset which I remember. With a cold your nose starts running a bit for a few hours, doesn't it, or you sneeze a couple of times, or have a bit of a tickle in your throat, maybe you start feeling a bit hot. But you can usually carry on working, even if you have to take a paracetamol. If it's the weekend and I have a cold and feel a bit grotty I will always prioritise resting on the sofa with hot drinks rather than dosing myself up with paracetamol to try to get stuff done.

But with the flu, I was literally fine one minute, and then within 15 minutes, I felt bloody awful and just NEEDED to get to my bed. I remember not bothering getting ready for bed, I found just getting up the stairs difficult. Was shivering then sweaty, achy bones, sore hot eyes, headache. I knew it was different from a cold, that feeling happened so fast.

If you are going to irrigate with salt water you should use cooled boiled water. Look up proper precautions and methods for a nasal rinse.

Influenza A is a virus, not an infection, you can carry it it and not have any symptoms just like any virus.

This is just utter nonsense !

Flu like any other virus can be anything from A symptomatic to fatal and anything in between.

Just coming out the other side. Sore throat, earache, nasty cough. Lost my voice after 4 days, and now croaky and coughing less. Dud two COVID tests just in case but tgey were negative. Honey, lemon, ginger helped, plus paracetamol and strepsils. On day 19.

I think this has been proven to help.

You can get a test that tests for influenza A, B and Covid. Worth doing so you know if it is something dangerous , given that you work in a hospital.

Just in case it's any help, my mother in law was a nurse. She swore by sniffing up salty water and also gargling with it. It sounds grim but salty water kills viruses.

Its flu. Totally different from a cold, as the fatigue is much worse and includes dizzy spells. It will go on its own but you can still get it even after the jab.

I've had Covid twice. Neither time did I lose my sense of taste and smell. If someone has flu, they are fine one minute and felled by it the next. There's no in between stage. Colds develop over days. So - I may be wrong, but you either have a horrible cold or it's Covid. Whatever you have, I hope you feel better soon!

It’s referred to in certain ways by the public because we used to have no way of testing at home which virus we have. It’s only recently people have started home testing.

There is no such virus as a “cold”. A “cold” is just a collection of symptoms. It could be any number of viruses causing them. But because in the past we had no way of knowing which virus, and they often all cause similar symptoms, humans just started referring to it as a “cold”. But it could be a coronavirus, RSV, adenovirus etc causing them. And yes sometimes even an influenza virus if it hits the person mildly.

Influenza is a virus. There are many versions. Influenza viruses are more likely to make you severely ill than other cold causing viruses. So humans started referring to bad illnesses as flu. But unless you test, you have no way of knowing for definite if it actually is flu. Then the myth stated that all influenza infections leave you incapacitated and unable to move etc. Which is not true. As we learned during Covid, how a virus hits one person is not always the same as the next person. You can even be totally asymptomatic with flu, just like Covid and other viruses.
As someone else said, chicken pox isn’t any less of chicken pox if someone has 3 spots compared to someone who is covered in them and hospitalised.

Do you need to know whether it’s flu or Covid or a cold?! Hope you feel better before Xmas!

Buy a flu test from Amazon