How can you really tell if it’s a cold or the flu?

[Greenbutterlfy566]

How can you really tell if it’s a cold or the flu?

What is the major difference between them?

It was also rapid onset and almost no snot at all.

At the moment I have a stuffed up head (but not a runny nose), really tired, aching all over especially across my chest, glands up, feeling sick, temperature but freezing cold and unable to eat. Slept all day yesterday except for about an hour I got up to see if that helped. It didn't, I was just thoroughly exhausted at the end of an hour on top of the rest.
I think it's just a bad cold. I don't tend to get colds/flu so when I do they can hit me badly.

I can just about function, although don't ask me anything too complicated, so I'm assuming it's a cold.

That could be flu witchend. Did it come on suddenly?

You will know when it's the flu. I had it in January 2018 and I have never ever ever felt as bad as I did then. The pain in my stomach was so bad I had to cut open the band on my pajamas with scissors to relieve pressure. I just couldn't lift my head. I slept for weeks on end and I was still affected in June that year. It took ages to leave me. I wouldn't wish the flu on anyone.

I have the flu jab religiously now. I couldn’t face that again

I've nursed some truly horrific cases of flu and it kills thousands of people every year. People who can get the jab and don't have no idea what they're playing with.

If you will get out of bed to pick up a £50 note you have a cold if not you have flu.

The blocked nose comes first with a cold.

With a flu it is not as early.

@ofwarren

Among other things all my muscles ached. It never occurred to me to take my temperature. I had heard the thing about “if it was flu you wouldn’t move to pick up £50” and I was still functioning so figured it wasn’t flu and just kept taking Benylin Day and Night and working.

When I had flu my dad came to collect me from my house to take me to my parents' as I was so poorly (bless them!). He had to physically carry me to the car! I've never experienced anything like it. Norovirus is also up there as one of life's worst experiences

Sudden onset of symptoms is a classic indicator of flu. Only had it twice but mine came on in the space of about thirty minutes both times. Went from feeling a bit off colour to feeling absolutely dreadful and feverish in the time it took to watch an episode of EastEnders. Bed bound for first two days, then sofa bound for five days. Awful joint paint. Lost 8lbs in five days as just couldn't eat. Even water turned my stomach. Extra strong paracetamol only took the edge off. Felt very weakened for the following couple of weeks and ended up with sinusitis which was agony. Probably took four weeks to fully recover? There's a reason that flu can kill if not properly treated.

@Witchend I think just the fact that you've been able to write that post indicates that it's unlikely to be flu! Hope you feel better soon

Lantern19 That's not at all true. I've had flu twice. Once really severely - the level of illness that many here seem to be proclaiming as the one and only manifestation of influenza - but another time it was tested for and proven to be flu (when there was the big swine flu epidemic) and it was no worse than a bad cold, but with less of the snot and more of a fever and aches.

I had flu really badly once.
It came on very suddenly, I was delirious and vomitting for the first three days, didn't eat for 2-3 weeks and was off work for 6 weeks. In that time I lost 1.5 to 2st (I was a size 10 beforehand).
No one else in my family got it as badly that year, and I have had the jab religiously every year since.

I've had flu once. I was horizontal for 4 days, sweating and hallucinating. I lost half a stone, and even after I recovered I was subject to panic attacks, dizzy spells and persistent aches. I was in my 30s, it would probably kill my now I'm close to 60.

It feels like every bone in your body aches and hurts. Just existing is uncomfortable and fever I guess is a big indicator

I had flu when I was 15 and it was horrible. Slept for 2 weeks basically. I think I might be getting over flu now - that or the worst cold ever! 4 days in bed, not eating, so lethargic. I couldn't even brush my hair as it was too exhausting. However I would have picked up the £50 - it would've just taken an hour or two to build up the energy to crawl out of bed and get it. I'm not sure if that's just being a skint-mum-of-4-and-3-weeks-before-xmas thing though.

I’ve only had flu once, I’m a very hardy person and rarely come down with anything. I was in bed for nearly a week, could only just make it to the toilet. Sweaty, uncomfortable, just felt awful and wanted to die , just for some release. I am so glad my kids didn’t catch it , luckily my exP was still living with me then so could sort the kids. I don’t know what I’d have done if I was single then, I was incapable of doing anything.

You don't necessarily know you've got flu.

DD had flu last year. She was a bit hot the first night, coughed a lot, but was otherwise perfectly capable of sitting upright, walking around, eating, driving the car, and many other things.

We only knew she had the flu because it had been going around her boarding school, and as soon as anyone got the sniffles they were taken to the local clinic and tested ASAP.

OTOH my stepsister had the flu a few years ago and died from it.

I had flu about 5 years ago. Can remember telling DH I didn't feel very well, went to bed and within about half an hour was basically unconscious - that was early Saturday Eve and didn't feel well enough to really get out of bed until the following Saturday - was vaguely aware that DD was in bed with me for about 5 days too with it, we could have laid in bed and died together, DH basically stuck his head round the door every now and then to make sure we were still alive! - I sweated, vomited and hallucinated for that week and wouldn't have cared if someone came and held a gun to my head! Followed by a dreadful chest infection, I had nearly a month off work in the end. Never ever do I want flu again!

Week 2 of the flu and I honestly thought I was going to die. You cannot move you have zero energy and I mean none! You know!

It really is very unlikely that all the people on this thread have only had flu once in their lives. It’s a much more common disease than that, and it’s much more likely that you’ve all also had one or two “nasty flu-y colds” which, if tested, would have proved to be influenza. Just because some flu strains can sometimes be very powerful and dangerous in some people doesn’t mean that all strains are always completely incapacitating in everyone. My niece was hospitalised with chicken pox. That doesn’t mean that I suddenly say “oh, I guess the nasty spotty bug my own DC had wasn’t real chicken pox”. And chicken pox is just one virus, not a whole family.

When there’s a dangerous pandemic in the offing, the fifty pound note test can cost lives, if it makes people think “oh, it can’t be flu, because I can get out of bed, so I don’t need to bother with quarantine”. A couple of posters on this thread have been misled like that.

As previously mentioned hothead...the main indicatornis it's rapid onset. Flu hits you fast unlike a cold that gradually comes in over a day or 2.
With Flu you can be right as rain at 10am and in bed literally wiped out by say 1 or 2pm.

• upthread not hothead

Bring ok at work then in bed in 4 layers, sweating and teeth chattering.

Deciding a shower may help. DH starts shower and you get in, only to realise it's like needles on your skin so you curl up, sobbing in the shower cubicle until he reaches you because you can't face/just can't do getting up.

When going to the loo requires all your focus and energy.

It's really grim.

I had flu just the once, 30 years ago, and it was as bad as people are saying.

It was weeks and weeks and I was emaciated by the end. Just staggering to get to the toilet was all I could cope with for the day. Sleeping in and out of delirium. I think if the Queen herself had visited I'd have barely opened my eyes.

It did give me fabulous antibodies for a great number of years mind!

I am now immune compromised so have a flu jab.

I've had heavy flu like colds but having had flu it's easy to know they are not flu.