To wonder what the hell has happened to colds?

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

I have a cold. Remember colds? Feel a bit rotten but carry on with your day as normal with the help of lemsip?

Not this cold. I can't get out of bed. I hurt. All over. My temp is so high I am alternating between shivering and wondering if My face is going to set on fire. I had to crawl to the loo. I have a cough that make my wonder if my lungs are going to explode.

How has this happened? Are colds worse these days? Am I getting old? I'm only 34 - surely too young for "bit of a cold but it has floored me".

I've given birth to three children and have had a terrible cough for the last four weeks.

A lot of laundry has been done.

McPhee I did, erm, shall we say similar

Sorry, tmi

Crosses legs. Adds Tena to the shopping list .

How fast did it come on? If within a day, I'd say it sounds like the flu. Although as someone who's had the flu many times (I appear to be ridiculously susceptible to it), I commend you for not jumping to say you have the flu at the smallest sniffle :) That drives me crazy, when I see someone who was off one day (or one afternoon!) and says, "oh, I had the flu". Not if you're standing her talking to me, you didn't...

Anyway, it can come in different severities. Swine flu was actually the mildest flu I've ever had.

AnAdventure - have you been swabbed for whooping cough? Adults don't tend to 'whoop'. They just have a persistent cough for weeks.

I had whooping cough nine years ago when DS was born and at the worst points I have wondered whether I'm very unlucky and have whooping cough again (or at least parapertussis), because there's some similarity. But the cough doesn't feel quite the same, isn't quite as bad, and this time round my chest isn't clear (which it typically is in wc) and I'm coughing up delightful, albeit not alarmingly-coloured, phlegm, so I've concluded that it's probably not. And as it took them several weeks and umpteen visits to diagnose me and DS last time when we were presenting with absolutely classic whooping cough (well, he wasn't whooping, but small babies don't) I haven't rushed to the GP.

Ok, I've got a temperature of 101.8 and I am very, very dizzy.

I managed to get to the last day of my course yesterday and somehow managed to get through an exam, plus a total of 5 hours of driving.

What the fuck do I do? I cannot carry on like this

I've got to get work done, there is no way I can get in (I was bloody stupid to drive yesterday). I've not let work know yet, but I can log in from home, but I'm supposed to be attending a meeting this afternoon that I bloody well set up and it's important.

Sorry, I'm rambling, just needed to get my frustration out somehow

There are various viruses that cause symptoms in between colds and flu in terms of severity - eg paraflus (lots of paraflu around this year....)