Would I know if I had flu?

[DearTeddyRobinson]

I feel stupid asking but I feel dreadful! I have been feeling a bit off colour for a few days then started with sore throat, swollen glands on Sunday. Last night I was awake half the night with chills, freezing cold, then boiling hot despite ibuprofen. Temp was 38. Today I am shattered and aching everywhere and even more worryingly I'm off my food 😀.
I know Mumsnet law is, if you can post on Mumsnet, it's not flu, but I definitely feel worse than a normal cold.
Ironically I'm due to have the flu shot next week . I'm worried about infecting the rest of the family, my 2yo has had his flu vaccine but not the 5yo (they have it at school but it's not been scheduled yet). DH reckons he feels snottybut he hates to be left out of an illness.
There's no point going to the doctor is there? I just feel so utterly shite.

Sounds just like a bad cold.

Even if it is flu to be honest there’s not much the Dr could do. Rest and stay hydrated.

I felt absolutely terrible the last time I had flu (as in almost delirious and having to crawl to the loo - lucky it was next door!)

However if you think about it logically, you can definitely have the same virus as someone else but have less severe symptoms . In fact some people are carriers and don't even know they are ill but can still spread it. So I think it is definitely possible you have flu. I think the only way to know for sure is with a blood test.

That's how I started with flu. Spent the next two weeks in bed feeling terrible. Paracetamol worked better to bring my temp down.

Saying that there's some nasty bugs going around. I have something that's not a cold or flu but has left me feeling utterly exhausted.

No point going to the doctor, it may be mild flu (if it were proper flu you would know about it) or a bad cold but either way it's a virus. I have the same - hope we both feel better soon.

My gp did a throat swab to diagnose flu.

Thanks all. It doesn't really matter whether it's flu or not I suppose. I won't bother the GP, I'll just stay in bed and whine 

I was hospitalised with flu and still posting on MN.

It felt worse than a bad cold but not as bad as i expected. I ploughed on and that's when I made myself particularly unwell. It hurt to breathe.

No point going to dr. Just rest and keep yourself hydrated. Lots of hand washing to prevent household spread.

For me, the difference between real flu (have only had it once) and a bad cold is the difference between having to stop whatever else I am doing and lie down immediately and not get up again for two weeks, and feeling rough but still being able to do stuff, I might struggle a bit but the two are totally different.

Flu generally comes on very quickly. I had it last Xmas and in the space of 2 hours I went from feeling 100% to feeling dreadful. Everything hurt and ached, even my teeth! Couldn't eat a thing, lost 7lbs in 5 days. Upset stomach, piercing headache and awful joint pain, but I could still glance at the TV and Mumsnet but only briefly.

When I had flu I was so run down I had sinusitis and tonsillitis too. I slept all day and struggled to make it downstairs to use the loo or eat. It hurt to lift my head off the pillow and my breathing was very laboured. I got an emergency doc appt and my friend drove me there. They gave me antibiotics and I felt better in a day or two, but took 6 months to feel me again.
Hope you feel better soon. Maybe you need medication? Take care.

It doesn’t really matter if you have a bad cold virus or ‘flu. If you feel rotten you feel rotten.

When I've had flu I've been completely wiped out, absolutely no question of having a lemsip (other cold and flu remedies are available) and soldiering on. Couldn't get out of bed for a week. Just physically couldn't do anything. Even after the week in bed when I was up and about, any physical exertion left me absolutely wiped out.

You have to listen to your body because if you have a severe virus and try to push on through it, you run the risk of ending up with post-viral fatigue syndrome and then you're really screwed.

I think there's just a really bad cold going around at the moment, it's bloody awful. I'm 36 weeks pregnant and crossing my fingers I don't go into labour until I feel better because I've no idea how I'll get a baby out when I can't breathe!

I've had proper flu only once, on Christmas Day when I was about 12. I thought I was dying. Full blown flu is utterly miserable.

Hope you feel better soon.

These past few weeks I've felt very poorly.

Started with swollen glands and severe sore throat. I was team-tagging paracetamol and ibuprofen and it barely touched it. In the end gargling with salt seemed to ease it.
I've been left feeling 'ill'. Achy, headache, very tired. Been in bed before the kids most nights.

It's still not flu. I managed my flu jab yesterday as I had no fever.

I've only had flu once. I was a student. I remember crawling to the phone and crying down the phone to my mum that I was dying. It felt soooo bad. I think I lost 2 weeks and took months to recover.

I hope it passes soon OP. Sounds like a virus. Rest and fluids.

Agreed @Trampire the last time I had actual flu I was crying I felt so awful. It also came on super fast, woke up feeling fine, went to work as normal, by lunchtime I felt like I'd been hit by a bus and had to get a taxi home!
My glands are all swollen and ache-y, not just neck but in my lower stomach and groin, and sort of under my arms/side boob area. At least my immune system is firing on all cylinders I suppose. Paracetamol seems to be helping a bit but temperature is still 38.
Sorry just looking for sympathy now my mum isn't picking up the phone :-)

Try ibuprofen in between paracetamol does OP. It may help with the temperature and the aches. Hopefully you will be able to sleep.

Sounds like you feel really rotten but doesn't sound like flu to me.

Rest up as much as you can.

It could be. Five years ago we realised neither of us had had flu before - dh had got it and I honestly thought he was dying, violent shakes that reminded me of my daughters childhood seizures, delirious, unable to walk to the next room (the bathroom, thankfully easier for men to improvise). Thankfully the nurse at nhs direct didn't ridicule me, but assured me it was only flu. We now pay for the flu vaccine all round.

Keep hydrated, take paracetamol 4 times a day, eat whatever you fancy and the only cure is time unfortunately.

I think the main difference between flu and a bad cold/virus type thing is the speed at which it comes on.

With flu, one minute you are fine going about your own business then bam it hits you and you can barely move for weeks. It doesn’t start with a sore throat and swollen glands and a few days of ‘coming down with something’.

Regardless, you can feel terrible with a rotten cold virus. Especially with a temperature.

When I have had the flu, it hit in a day. I went to school fine, maybe a tiny bit tired, by lunch I had a terrible headache, by home time I wanted to cry I felt so wretched.
I was throwing up before supper time, and bottom end before bed.

It took a week to make it out of bed, and a month and a half before I was back to being able to go full days at school.
I nearly failed the year because of it.

Please take extra caution with thinking 'it's just flu', as I did last year, only to leave it a few days (with fever, aches, high temp, shaking, vomiting) and I developed pneumonia with a very, very high blood infection level. If in any doubt, call NHS Direct or your GP.
Even my GP didn't diagnose pneumonia from my symptoms, it was only after a chest x-ray and immediate hospital admission did things become clear.

On the day I had flu, I started the morning happily sitting and chatting with foils on at the hairdressers. Come mid afternoon it hit me like a bus.

I felt horrendous all of a sudden. I took myself off to bed simultaneously sweating and shivering. The rear of the family were amazed as I had been absolutely fine hours ago.The worst thing was the aching. Every single bone and muscle in my body ached. All my energy in my body just disappeared so all I could do was lie down. But it hurt to lie down, I couldn't move, couldn't even lift my head off the pillow.

DH rang the doctors and made me an appointment, but as I literally had no energy and it hurt so much, I couldn't move, he ended up cancelling it.

I didn't venture downstairs for nearly a week. I spent 5 days literally either in bed or crawling to the en suite to wee.

The irony is I had had a flu jab in the late October and came down with the full blown flu in December so I don't know whether I will bother having the flu jab this year!

I have never been so I'll as when I had flu. I can still remember being delirious. I was trying to push a huge globe onto my shoulder, like Atlas !
I was on my own and had to lay in my wee for 2 days because I literally couldn't get out of bed. It had to be thrown away, all the pillows, bedding everything.
Horrendous.

Thanks MNers. Jesus real flu is a bastard, I do think I've just got a nasty virus. No upset tummy though, phew. Keeping on top of the paracetamol & ibuprofen and really hoping DH gets home in time for bath time!