Sometimes a cold isn't "just a cold"

[QuestionsorComments]

I have a cold. It's not Covid (tested) and it's not flu (I'm not that ill) but my god it's not "just a cold" to carry on as usual with.

I have no voice, my ears and throat hurt like hell even after taking pain relief, my nose just will not stop, my back and legs ache and if I sit down for more than 20 mins I'm asleep.

But when I go back to work I'll have to put down that I had a cold

Sounds absolutely like Flu. Flu wipes you out. I have a had covid and for me it was the same as when I had Flu.

There's no test for a cold or Flu so you can say you've got whatever takes your fancy.

There have always been varying degrees of “a cold” ranging from “just a cold” to “absolute bloody stinking cold”

Sometimes you feel shit and sometimes not.

I had two ‘super’ colds last year, one lasted for three weeks in September and absolutely wrung me out. The second I caught from DH right before Christmas and we were both floored for the full festive period, well into January. Terrible chest infection, cold symptoms, painful sinuses. I had to buy a humidifier for my bedroom because I kept waking every 30 minutes with a mouth like a desert.

Both times I tested and tested (PCR and repeated LFTs) but they were always negative.

@Iggly

Unless you’ve done a PCR it may still be covid 🤷🏻‍♀️

Which isn’t like the fucking flu or a cold. But anyway I digress.

Colds can bad nasty fuckers - not just a sniffle!

True.

Why do you say Covid isn't like a flu or cold ?
I have covid now and it feels different to both but I can't put my finger on what's exactly different as I have a runny nose, sore throat, cough, fever, and feeling sick to boot. All cold and or flu symptoms but there is something about Covid that makes it feel more forceful than a cold or flu even though I've had horrendous colds and flus in the past. Covid feels more vicious somehow.

There are many different types of colds. Coronaviruses, rhinovirus and the shitty RSV. All classed as a cold.

There are around 200 respiratory viruses that infect humans not just cold/flu/covid.

I put 'respiratory infection' down when that happened to me!

Why do you say Covid isn't like a flu or cold

While some symptoms are similar, covid has a wider range of effects on the body. It impacts on the nervous system and circulatory system (which is why you end up with some people having heart issues and others with losing their sense of taste/smell). Plus there may be “asymptomatic” cases which do end up with as yet unknown effects of the virus.

There's hundreds of colds, hundreds of 'flus and a whole bunch of non-cold-non-flu viruses doing the rounds at any given time. You could have any of them.

I'd tell work you've got an "undetermined non-Covid-19 virus" which has the merit of accuracy...unless it's bacterial.

Colds vary for me from a couple of sneezes and a bit of a runny nose to 5 days of misery, off work in bed buried under a mountain of used tissues, bleeding from the cracked skin around my nose, aching stomach muscles from the cough, nausea and a headache.

At least I eventually discovered that I react badly to one if the ingredients in Lemsip, and that it was the medicine rather than the cold which was causing the vomiting.

I hate the way it's not acceptable to say that you had a bad cold and have to claim something else to not get thought badly of at work.

Write down what the GP would: URTI. (Upper respiratory tract infection)

@DaisyWaldron

Is it phenylephrine? That makes me sick as a dog, I can't take cold and flu medicine unless it's the stronger stuff from the pharmacist because that has a different active ingredient.