How often do you get debilitating flu?

[CharlotteRumpling]

I am hardly ever ill, but once a year or so I get a terrible bout of flu. Got it now and can barely get out of bed. ( have had my flu jab).

DH has flu several times a year but not severe attacks. Can usually keep going but just WFH.

He's always quite taken aback by how ill I get quite quickly.

touch wood, I’ve never had flu.

I think I am using flu too loosely. Probably a bug or a virus?
Luckily no small DC so can lie in bed all weekend.
Not wishing for death yet but definitely feeling completely felled.

once when I was about 16 or 16, so almost 30 years ago. I was teenage girl and so probably prone to a bit of melodrama but at one point I thought I might be dying.

Whatever your husband gets several times a year which makes him feel too ill to go into the office but not too ill to work is definitely not influenza. I’m going to say probably just a regular cold!

I’ve never had flu. 49.

About every 20 years

Twice in 45 years

I last had it 20 years ago. Proper flu is something that completely floors you. In bed with a fever unable to eat for a week . It isn’t a bad cold or a virus. It’s not something you get several times a year. Last time I had it I thought I was dying.

I get flu about once a decade or so. It’s literally a case of being in bed for several days barely able to turn over because I have no energy. I can barely even remember my actual symptoms because I was so exhausted I couldn’t mentally process what they were.

I get a bad cold once every couple of years, and a regular cold maybe a few times a year (more when the kids were small).

Same. Twice in nearly 50 years. Both times notable as absolutely hideous.

I dont know of anyone at all who has had actual flu more than a few times.

Why are you calling it flu then if you can’t tell the difference?

My daughter was hospitalised with flu.
If you can sit and type .. you haven't got flu.
It's deliberating..
I've not had it.. I've had pneumonia and pleurisy and was in hospital for 3 weeks.

Twice in my life. Both times I was bed ridden for days and took weeks to recover and start to feel normal again.

I've also had covid twice, about a year apart, and it was very similar. Took much, much longer to recover from the first bout though. I thought I'd never feel well again.

What you describe doesn't sound like flu to me.

I’m nearly 42 and don’t think I’ve ever had the flu. In my mind if you are capable of anything other than laying in bed it’s not flu.

However, about 7 years ago I had a virus. A fever, aches and chills, a cough, no appetite and didn’t want to do anything. We were on holiday at the time. I called it a nasty virus. My partner caught it from me and absolutely disagrees that it was not flu. Personally I don’t think he realises just how horrific the flu is but maybe I’m wrong 🤷🏼‍♀️

The fact that so many people remember actual flu after decades shows you how bad it is. It’s like a whole body nightmare with loads of different horrible symptoms.

No idea! Verbal shorthand. Maybe I should call it a lurgy.
Feels like Covid tbh.

Never. I’m 44.

In my 60+ years I've had it 3 times - ages 6, 17 and 45

A lot of people say they've had "flu" when it's a bad cold

They are not remotely alike.

What I remember most about the flu was the awful pains in every muscle, including my eyes.

It actually really hurt to blink.

And for months afterwards, everything smelled and tasted like pork.

Someone once told me that the way to know for sure whether it was flu or not is to imagine a load of bank notes have floated into your garden. If you’d even think about going out to collect them, it’s not flu.

This is the most dramatic thread ever 😂😂

😂
I think I can still go out to get banknotes...

😂😂🙏🙏

Twice in 55 years. Genuinely thought I was dying both times.
Have had covid three times. Did not compare to proper flu.

I have had what I assume was flu once, when I was in my late 20s. Never had it before or since. I’ve had covid a couple of times since then and neither was comparable to the flu. With the flu, I was in bed for a week with a fever, chills, cough, couldn’t eat etc, and afterwards I developed a severe chest infection that needed two courses of antibiotics to get rid of. It was strange how floored I was by it, being young and very fit and healthy back then.

Ah yes. Crawling to the bog, puking in a bucket. Crying and then crying because crying hurt.

Awful experience. Religious about the flu jab me like.