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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think I've had the flu hundreds of times

93 replies

Fanfeckintastic · 22/12/2014 08:06

Is this just a word people sling around for every little sniffle or have I been struck down hundreds of times with the flu and not even realize it?

I've never thought to diagnose myself with the flu but seemingly everyone around me is pottering around, blowing their nose, looking a bit stuffed up, and apparently this is the flu?

OP posts:

SkyHighWhy · 22/12/2014 09:16

I record sick leave in our office. No women have ever claimed to have had the flu, only a cold. This month alone, 4 men claimed 'flu' when they were off for just 1 day. They must think it's more manly, or something. Healthy DH had flu once - 2 weeks off, thought he was going to die etc. I know these guys have not had flu, but I can't say anything!!

GretnaGreen · 22/12/2014 09:20

You have to actually have real flu to know the difference. I remember staggering up the road having finished work, swaying, with my chest literally burning. I went straight to bed and was there for about five days I think. After that I realised that previous bouts of flu had just been heavy colds.

FayKorgasm · 22/12/2014 09:22

Sky the two people in my work were men too. Actually there is a lot of sickness amongst the men in my workplace lasting one day. The women don't seem to catch these one day illnesses.

carabos · 22/12/2014 09:26

Agree with everyone else. "Flu" is now shorthand for "a cold". Anyone who has had proper flu knows it's nothing like a cold.

I'm 51, I have had proper flu three times. Each time I have gone from being normal to half dead in a couple of hours, then been totally out of it for days and poorly for a couple of weeks. There is nothing worse (outside of real serious illness and disease).

I'm never having it again. I have the jab every year and do all I can to avoid it.

TheFairyCaravan · 22/12/2014 09:27

I've had flu twice. Once when I was a teenager, my sister and I had it at the same time. My parents were self-employed and it was one of the very few times my mother took time off to look after us.

The other time was about 13-14 years ago, I had to get friends in to take the children to school. I was so ill, it was horrid. DH had a cold the week before and said he had 'flu, but when he saw me with it, he realised he didn't have it at all!

DS2 was hospitalised with the 'flu when he was 2. He was so, so poorly.

FannyFanakapan · 22/12/2014 09:30

My son just got over the flu - a week in bed asleep, temp of 39.4 for the first 5 days, lost a stone, I really struggled to wake him and get liquid into him. Blinding headache and, for the following week was struggling to eat and has been very weak and wobbly on his feet. He is an ultrafit 15 year old.

I had a mild version of whatever he had - in bed 4 days, leaving bed only to do the school run out of necessity, asleep 19+ hours a day, lost 10lbs.

This is my second bout of flu in my life.

Pooka · 22/12/2014 09:35

I also have the flu jab. I pay for mine.

Next year, we are all going to have the vaccination.

AuntieStella · 22/12/2014 09:36

I've had flu unmistakeably once (bed bound for about 10 days, not fully recovered until about the 3 week point).

But also, with much milder symptoms, met the Tamiflu criteria during the swine flu outbreak. So I do think mild flu is a valid concept.

mumonashoestring · 22/12/2014 09:37

I had swine flu during the big outbreak a few years ago - I was off for a week and can't remember most of it.

One of the idiot doctors who worked for the same organisation spent two weeks wafting around the office yammering on about how she 'probably' had swine flu but doctors don't get to be ill so she had to just get on with it taking nothing but paracetamol and occasionally making forced little coughing noises. And she wondered why everyone thought she was a total tit...

ouryve · 22/12/2014 09:40

YANBU.

By some people's reckoning I have flu, at the moment. Off shopping with DS1, this morning! I'll just be sure to carry some extra tissues.

lougle · 22/12/2014 09:44

YANBU but to posters who say 'people walking around saying they have migraine '...

I have migraines a lot. They're properly diagnosed by a consultant neurologist. I have a mixed presentation -sometimes the actual headache isn't terrible but I slur my words and have a red face; sometimes the headache is awful and I feel sick; sometimes it comes with jaw pain and shooting pain down my arm; sometimes I just feel like I have a rod through my eye. They are all migraine. It's just a different vein in the brain that is struggling at that moment in time.

I have to keep going. I have 3 young children who have to get to school. One of them is at special school. I don't have the option of resting in a dark room.

I'm also unfortunate in that my stomach shuts down during a migraine, so tablets don't absorb.

I take my medication (rizatritpan), 1000mg paracetamol and 400mg ibuprofen and hope that the rizatritpan will lift the migraine enough to stop my stomach being shut down and the tablets will absorb. As soon as DH gets in from work I hand over to him. Until then I have to get on with it.

So yes - I am the person in the school playground claiming to have a migraine if asked why I'm so pale and quiet. I'm not exaggerating. I don't have 'just' a headache. I have a migraine. I feel awful. I'm just doing what I have to do.

CrohnicChristmas · 22/12/2014 09:46

I had flu once. I started feeling odd so went home early, by the time I got home I felt awful and just laid on the sofa with a blanket. I was 17/18 at the time, my mum had to stay home from work to look after me. She had to carry me to the toilet! I was laid up for a week then still weak for a fortnight or so after that. The worst bit was the dreams though- as I laid there dozing on and off I couldn't tell which bits were dreams and which bits were real. I woke from one dream (I dreamt my mum gave birth) convinced that my mum was pregnant!

lougle · 22/12/2014 09:48

I forgot to add that I also take 1 medication three times per day and another at night as a preventative.

Mulderandskully · 22/12/2014 09:48

Lougle- no one said you can't walk around with a migraine.

Panda- a GP will diagnose Flu without a blood test

Staywithme · 22/12/2014 09:48

I've had the flu once in my life (I'm 46yr old) My husband came in from work to find me under a pile of coats on the sofa, shivering and complaining about this rotten bug. He took one look at me and was horrified by the state of me. I must have looked like death warmed up. I told him I was waiting until he came home to fetch me a couple of paracetamol to help me feel better so I could go into work (night duty) as I hadn't been able to get crawl to the phone to call in sick. Didn't feel I could let them down last minute. HA! Within an hour I was a gibbering wreck and could only cry down the phone to my boss. It took me a week before I could eat and walk and a further week to stop coughing.

My husband ended up with it and came home in tears saying I couldn't have been as sick as he was because of how ill he felt. I have asthma. Poor love was really very I'll. We get the flu jab every year.

Towanda · 22/12/2014 09:50

I've had flu three times. The first time I was bedridden for a week (no children). The second was over Christmas a few years ago, dp also had it and between us we somehow managed to cook a turkey and chips for the dc. The third, I managed to get the dc to school and walk to the doctors and home again. I would have passed the £50 on the floor/£100 in the garden test and yet I was officially diagnosed by a doctor with flu and still felt like I'd been run over with a truck.

CockBollocks · 22/12/2014 09:52

YANBU

Although I don't think people realise until they have actually had it.. I know I often thought I had the flu in my early 20's!!

I got the flu in 2010, i was so poorly, couldn't move at all. Even the soles of my feet and palms of my hands burned with pain, it was horrific.

Osmiornica · 22/12/2014 09:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OopsButItWasntMe · 22/12/2014 09:56

You can have mild flu. All the 'it's only flu if you can't get out of bed' stuff is a myth.

funnyossity · 22/12/2014 10:02

Yes you can have milder flu. Our immunity levels would be far lower if we had genuinely only had flu the one time we failed(passed?) the £50 note test. Like all the Americans who died when Europeans took influenza to the New World.

Quangle · 22/12/2014 10:05

I can understand why people say this although I can also understand why people get annoyed. I get annoyed when people with a sore throat say they have tonsillitis...

On the other hand, I have never had flu. And I have had the flu jab so I don't have flu now (or at least not the flu jab strain). But I have been so ill I'm not going to describe it as a cold. I'm now on my fifth day off work and have cancelled every event for the past two weeks. So really rough - on antibiotics now and have to stop half way up the stairs for a breather. I think we need a new word!

LeftyLoony · 22/12/2014 10:07

I had it when I was 7. I was hallucinating and temp of over 104 for a week. I then developed bronchitis as a complication (I have asthma).

OopsButItWasntMe · 22/12/2014 10:09

Quangle, you might still have flu. The flu jab isn't 100% effective - only 50-70% I think. Hope you feel better soon!

BackOnlyBriefly · 22/12/2014 10:11

While I know some people will call a mild cold 'flu' I'm not convinced that this new "it's not the flu if you can do things' is any more accurate.

What do you call it when you do go out because you have to, but you feel like you are dying. Is that a mild cold or could it be that some of us get the flu and just don't take to our bed for weeks?

bonkersLFDT20 · 22/12/2014 10:15

I caught up with a fellow club runner at a recent 1/2 marathon. He said he wasn't doing very well because he had flu. Yeah mate.

Also, cramp in your calf. You cannot sit there and do nothing when you have cramp - you generally have to do lots of vocal ouchy noises, stretch the leg out, hop about wincing and generally make a big fuss.

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