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.

Once when I was 13, 48 now. The only thing worse was chickenpox I got whilst at uni.

My friend is a GP and categories flu by what she calls the 50 quid test. If someone was in bed with flu and she put £50 on the floor next to them and said pick that up and it yours, someone with flu wouldn't be able to. Obviously she doesn't actually do this, it just shows how horrific you feel with it, you cannot move. I had a colleague who constantly said "I've definitely got flu" with any little sniffle whilst still nipping out the office for a fag.

I'm 35, never had it yet. Tonsillitis on the other hand I lay in bed shaking with fever in a freezing sweat for 5 days straight, then another week to get out of bed after that. Would've gladly accepted death.

I am nearly 60 years old. I have never had flu.

I had at at new year in 2018 and I couldn’t get out of bed to even go to the sitting room or sit up in bed for about a week.

I had flu once when I was in my early teens. The only time I’ve ever fainted in my life. I get colds/viruses quite easily as I’m on immunosuppressants but not had the flu while I’ve been on them. The last virus I had wiped me out for 6 weeks and landed in my hospital but it wasn’t the flu.

I am prone to it.

Aged 5 - admitted to hospital.for five days because I had a febrile convulsion die to v v high temp and delirium.

Aged 14 - had two weeks off school and lost 12lb. V v poorly and v v sick - yellow bile because there was nothing left.

Aged 36 - caught it from 18 month old. Very ill, totally bedridden. When I developed a temp of 106 and was delirious, dh called the Dr. Nothing to do. DH was in court that week and we had to hire an emergency agency nanny and pay double. 28 years ago it cost £850.

If you can lift your head from the pillow and take a sip of water it isn't influenza.

Generally I am very robust. Have never had a day off for colds, etc., only a day or two for bad breaks and carried on breast feeding through infective mastitis and a breast abscess.

Since the bout at 36 I have had a flu jab except when pg. Never, ever again if I can help it.

When pg with dd I had pleurisy, in 2022 I had covid, last winter I had a nasty chest infection. The symptoms were simply not comparable to influenza.

I'm 57. Had it twice. First time was the flu epidemic in 1991. Second time 1996
Have had my flu jab every year since and have been spared thank god.

Absolutely loads. Flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, covid, random colds times a million. I catch everything going. I get some kind of infection every 4-6 weeks.

Twice in 59 years.

I've had it once. It hit me like a tonne of bricks at work and then knocked me out for about a fortnight. I spent most of it asleep because I couldn't do much else (and that's impressive, because I have trouble with staying asleep). I felt so awful that I had to ask my family to collect my dogs because I couldn't look after them. My mother was shocked at the state of me, as I am rarely ill. She said that, if she'd known how bad I was, then she'd have put me in the car too, but there wasn't any room and she didn't want my germs!

I've never had a flu jab.

Don't really know what people mean about wanting to die though tbh. I've never really felt like that, even when I had septic shock and was actually close to death.

It's not nice obviously! The only time I really cried for just... just something to end it was norovirus with broken ribs when I couldn't stop vomiting.

Actual flu? I’ve had it 3 times in my life (I’m nearly 60) and felt utterly wretched each time. Pain in every joint, blinding headache, relentless cough, delirium, dizziness. Took weeks to feel better.

A nasty cold? Maybe once or twice a year. I seen to be getting Covid every couple of years now too.

But actual influenza is a really serious illness. Many people die from it each year.

Never had flu, never known anyone in my family or DH's have it.

Another virus that leaves me wiped out enough to stay in bed for days? Covid the first time, maybe one other time a few years before that. It's nothing like an annual thing for me or even once a decade.

Once in 47 years. Around the time of SARS. Our cocker spaniel refused to eat the biscuits my DM left on a plate on the floor. He ate everything, normally.

Ive had proper flu about 3 times. The very very worst was when we had 3 children under 6. DH and I both had it, as did the children (aged 1 ,4 5). No family to help. We were so ill we couldn't even work out how to ask friends to help for a few days, they did eventually and took the kids for short bits while we recovered. We had to force ourselves up at 10 minute slots to look after the kids for several days. It was hell. Especially when the 1 year old was better before us. We fed them absolutely shite and the the TV on constantly. Pure survival.

Real flu probably 3 times in my life, I’m almost 50yo. However I do get ill a lot, I have chronic health issues and immune compromised so pick up every virus going, the slight fevers and sniffles my DCs had last week have had me in bed for 4 days this week. I had covid 6 times in the first lockdown. Sometime I can feel like I have the flu but it’s not. What one person can manage as a simple viral infection will knock me off my feet for a week plus. However, knowing what real flu feels like I can say even though I may feel really bad, bedridden even, it’s definitely not real flu.

This is what I’m like too. I had flu last winter despite having had the flu jab, and two awful viruses that kept me in bed with a temperature for a week. I also had pneumonia. Do you know why it happens to you?

Until last year, once in 10 years. But I've had proper in bed, shivering, can't eat, temperature spike, raging sore throat flu seven times, for 2-3 weeks each time, since last summer. I've been off work and out of action socially about 50% of the time. Just as well I work for myself or I would have been sacked but my income has taken a hit. No idea why it has been so bad this year. From next year I am paying for the flu jab.

Ive had COVID once. No other case of flu. I'm 67. People often claim to have flu but they've actually got a bad cold.

He isn't getting flu for starters. Flu is feeling like you're dying. Had it once and I'm in my 30s. Have my flu jab every year and so far it's worked. My DH got actual flu one year (that I didn't catch from him thanks to jab) and he has had vaccine every year since.

Might get a bad cold most years but not much you can do. Odd time of year for it now but can happen. I know someone who used to get horrendously ill, same time every year, and turned out to be a vitamin deficiency.

I think I got it two or three times as a child/teenager as I remember thinking I was dying and being forced, barely conscious, out of bed by my mother to go to A&E as I had a rash she thought was meningitis. Turns out it was heat rash from the fever. The last time I definitely had flu was in the late 00s. I was severely unwell for about three weeks, freezing cold and coughing so much I vomited. I thought I had recovered enough to drive, then had to pull over after ten minutes as I nearly passed out. Luckily, my mother was with me and took over, and I immediately fell fast asleep. Pretty scary what could have been... but I finally got home to recover, and ended up in hospital on oxygen a few days later as I'd woken up severely struggling to breathe. About three months after that, it kicked off an immune reaction that was later diagnosed as MS. Which I have to this day. I am religious about the flu jab, and turn into the most antisocial germaphobe all winter. I'm very, very unhappy that masks and hand sanitisers died out! But I haven't caught it since. Genuinely terrified of ever getting it again - and shout at everyone I know to get the bloody jab.

I hope you've been to the Dr for blood tests!

If your DH can usually keep going then he hasn’t got flu!

I’ve had it once in my life, but had many many bad colds.

The flu test is if there is a £50 note on the floor and you could go and get it, then you do not have the flu, if you leave the note on the floor, then you have flu.

I think it’s unlikely you get flu so often. Probably a nasty cold or virus you get. Not flu.

I’ve had it once

You can pay £20 for a yearly flu jab that’s well
worth it

symptomns now , or serveral times a year suggest bad cold not the flu