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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that many people say they have the flu when really they just ahe the cold?

135 replies

OhFFSWhatsWrongNow · 02/12/2014 21:54

I hear it quite a lot, especially from colleagues. "I shouldn't have come in today, I've got the flu", or "I can't stop sneezing, I have the flu"

I have only had the flu once in my life and I literally couldn't move from my bed. These people may have a horrible cold (and I do have sympathy for them, it's not nice) but they are able to walk, lift their heads, eat etc. i couldn't do any of these things.

I realise I a may be generalising here and basing this on my own experience and am prepared to be told so, but Aibu to think that the sniffles, sneezes and a runny/blocked nose is not the same as having the flu and the flu is much, much worse?

OP posts:

ktd2u · 04/12/2014 00:22

After reading some of these posts in glad I had the flu jab! I've never had it but brother did and for once it wasn't man flu I

ArgyMargy · 04/12/2014 16:26

It is a competition though, isn't it? Survival of the fittest is a strong driving instinct.

Perhaps the flu thing is related to the message about vaccination, which is essentially that flu kills so we should all get vaccinated. Then if you say that flu can just be like a cold, that message sounds a bit weird.

DoJo · 04/12/2014 17:25

Survival of the fittest isn't about competition or instinct - it's about natural selection, a genetic predilection for creatures that are better suited to their environments, not those who are actually physically fittest at any given time. Any competitive instinct in those who wish to downplay others illnesses is not motivated by survival, otherwise they would be keen to acknowledge others' suffering and exaggerate it in order to appear more healthy in comparison.

I also don't think there is any inherent contradiction between saying that certain groups are more likely to be badly affected by the flu or that it can kill, whilst also acknowledging that there are mild strains and people who do not seem as susceptible to the more severe symptoms. Cancer can kill, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't and some people have no symptoms at all, but I've never heard anyone being told that they 'can't' have cancer because someone else's experience was different - if we can accept different experiences of one disease, why not another?

steppemum · 05/12/2014 11:16

I have the flu.

I have a sore throat, rotten cough, headache, shivers feel crap.

Please say I have the flu, then I can go to bed and ignore all the things that need doing instead of getting one with it.

Oh wait, I am sitting here on mn, guess I don't pass the £50 note test....

tobysmum77 · 05/12/2014 11:25

yabu

If I have a tummy bug and I'm only sick twice no one says 'that can't possibly be a tummy bug because when I had one it lasted a week'.

Yes, flu can be serious but illnesses don't present the same in everyone. I had a couple of days last month where I was shivering/ sore throat and then had the shakes and felt rough, I then recovered and luckily it came to nothing. But it certainly wasn't a cold probably flu that I had some level of immunity to.

People talk utter nonsense on this subject.

steppemum · 05/12/2014 11:47

toby - you are right in that what you had could have been the flu, and not everyone reacts the same way, but why couldn't it have been a cold? All of those are cold symptons.

In the 'old days' they used to have a 'head cold' which was being pretty unwell with a cold necessitating a few days off work. But it wasn't flu. Colds don't have to be mild any more than flu HAS to be serious.

naty1 · 05/12/2014 13:32

bluesbaby im very similar GF at 20 awful in bed weeks sleeping - really flu is nothing in comparison. But ill for years after with every cold going.
I also am now hypo (but dsis is too and never had GF)
Not sure how much flu ive had - at school i got the jab and until recently due to asthma. Now cheap gps wont let me have it.
But its not always 'just a cold' for people with complications my asthma can make any cough that goes to tbe chest very serious. And dmum due to smoking can be on antibiotics after a normal cold.
I get a temp with every cold i get (think because my normal temp is so low so i feel ill at 37.)
Even with gf i could get out of bed for the money just not climb the stairs.
I think d&v is the worst, sweating temps.

Crinkle77 · 05/12/2014 13:33

It's the same when people say they have tonsillitis but really it's just a bad sore throat. I have had really bad tonsillitis and been totally floored and couldn't even get out of bed.

tobysmum77 · 05/12/2014 13:46

when I get colds properly they are generally absolutely explosive snot-wise but they don't floor me like that couple of days. That's why I would conclude that. But it's kinda hard to argue about as no one will ever know for certain.

StripedOss · 05/12/2014 13:49

thing is Crinkle, tonsillitis has a very specific set of symptoms, people dont seem to understand that its not just a sore throat.. it can affect your hearing and shoot your temperature through the roof. When i was at my worst i couldnt eat, couldn't sleep and had to pluck up the courage to drink, and the suggestion of gargling aspirin? HA HA HA.. yeah right!

SOOOO glad mine are well gone, i'd got to the point the ABs had stopped working and i had it permanently when they finally took them out!!

TheRainInTheWoods · 05/12/2014 13:54

A bad cold is horrible but proper flu is worse. You can't move. Honestly, I felt so ill with the flu (caught from my DSs when younger) I could not have cared if the house were burning down.

Same for tonsillitis.

To hear people with a snotty nose say they have the flu is just wrong. It goes hand in hand with 'being a bit OCD'. Argh.

TheRainInTheWoods · 05/12/2014 13:54

I know Striped I specifically requested mine to be kept for me in a jar. No such luck.

puddymuddles · 01/01/2015 12:38

Oops I have been telling DH I have the flu - well obviously sorry for you all who have been in bed with flu but now realise I just have a cold. Am pregnant but have cough, sneeze, feel a bit lethargic but quite capable of walking to the supermarket with my 2 DD (even though I would rather not). Fell sorry for anyone who has proper flu and will never claim to have it again when I haven't! Had proper food poisoning in last pregnancy though and that was AWFUL!

Scrumbled · 01/01/2015 12:59

Unless you get a blood test you have no idea which virus it is, if you are in bed for a week or still making it into work. Every bout of flu is not the same in everyone, neither is every cold, or case of tonsillitis. What important is how shit you feel.

kungfupannda · 01/01/2015 13:00

I've had flu once and about the only thing that I can remember from the general haze of misery is lying face down on the bathroom floor trying to summon up enough energy to shout to DP to get me an ambulance. He stayed asleep and I finished up sleeping on the bathroom floor because I couldn't get up.

When I was in the sixth form at boarding school there was also a bad flu outbreak and most of our year went down with it, along with our house mistress. The school sanatorium was full, one of the nurses had it too, so they pretty much left the few of us left standing to nurse the rest of the year. It was terrifying - people were having hallucinations and one girl kept trying to open the window and climb out.

I don't know how it didn't occur to a bunch of perfectly intelligent 18 year-olds that the time had come to call an ambulance, rather than constantly ringing the sanatorium and being told to tuck them up with a hot water bottle and some paracetamol.

It was all starting to get a bit Chalet School-ish with people lying around 'still, cold and to all appearances dead' and wondering when the 'crisis' would come, and moving the noisier hallucinators into one room to stop them disturbing others.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 01/01/2015 13:24

I've always found that folk tend to claim "flu" right up to the point when they get the real thing; after that they don't often say it again

My own heavy cold started on Boxing Day and I've felt absolutely horrible with aches and pains, fever, the lot. But was it flu? No it certainly wasn't ...

LaLyra · 01/01/2015 14:35

I think the £50 test is too arbitrary. People react differently. My sister and I both had swine flu (swabbed, confirmed, random phones calls to the house to ensure we hadn't broke quarantine). I could hardly get out of bed, crawled to the toilet, wanted to cry at having to eat but didn't have the energy etc. She felt like crap, but could watch tv or wander to the kitchen to make toast. She probably could have forced herself to go to work or out shopping because although she felt crap she 'only' felt crap whereas I didn't even make it downstairs in the house for 4 days.

OopsButItWasntMe · 01/01/2015 14:39

YABU - flu is a virus and can be different for everyone. of people don't have any symptoms with flu [[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822047]]

OopsButItWasntMe · 01/01/2015 14:40

Oops! That should be 77% of people don't have any symptoms with flu link here

OhYouBadBadKitten · 01/01/2015 14:48

I'm so glad to see others who agree the £50 test is bollocks. Swine flu (which is now counted just as one of the strains along with all of the others) killed some, others were able to be up and about. It's the same with all of the circulating flus.

Different strains of flu have different levels of severity and people react differently to them. Even the CDC says that it can cause mild to severe illness.

SolitudeSometimesIs · 01/01/2015 14:50

I have the flu now (confirmed by GP), I also have a chest infection and ear infections in both ears, I actually feel like I'm falling apart. BUT I've had to get up every day to mind the kids (who I caught it off) as DH has been in work and my closest relative is going through chemo and radiotherapy and I couldn't ask them to help, even though they've offered.

The flu is fucking misery on a stick!

JellyDiamond · 01/01/2015 14:51

YANBU! I've never been as ill in my life as I was with the flu! I physically couldn't even move let alone get out of bed, and I even had to be helped to the toilet! My appetite vanished, I lost a shit load of weight, and I honestly didn't start to feel truly "better" until about six weeks later.

Worse still I developed a secondary chest infection and I can still remember the utter agony whenever I coughed. The pain was unreal.

So, yes, these idiots who have a sniffle and say they had the flu can just go and fuck right off!

ghostspirit · 01/01/2015 14:51

i had flu jab because of being pregnant. dont know why i bothered have only ever had it once in my life... chances of me getting it whilst pregnant was probably quite low :/

OhYouBadBadKitten · 01/01/2015 14:56

Btw the HPA do a weekly surveillance report which is interesting. It seems that there are a lot more people being hospitalised this year with flu this year and unfortunately the match between the vaccine and the main circulating strain isn't very good, meaning the vaccine is less effective than usual.

KellyElly · 01/01/2015 15:14

Flu was a walk in the park compared to Quincy throat. I've been hospitalised with that twice. So glad my tonsils are gone now.

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