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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that people shouldn't bandy about the word flu when it's just a cold?

47 replies

QueenBean · 18/01/2015 21:17

Fine, it may be a bad cold and you've felt unwell for a few days but it is not flu. Certainly not "a touch of the flu"

My dp has got flu at the moment and has spent the past almost week in bed, unable to get up for more than an hour and genuinely unable to do much. Having had it (thankfully only once) I felt like I was dying /might have been preferable.

Aibu to think people saying "I was unwell at the weekend, I had the flu" have NO idea how miserable it actually is?

OP posts:
BringYourOwnSnowman · 18/01/2015 21:20

yes - it is the kind of thing you say - until you actually have flu and then you realise a bad cold has nothing on flu!

26Point2Miles · 18/01/2015 21:21

Yanbu!

People seem to love exaggerating these days

dexter73 · 18/01/2015 21:21

It's one of those things people on here seem to get cross about but in real life people say it all the time!

SaucyJack · 18/01/2015 21:22

Has your DP's flu been diagnosed by a medical professional?

weeblueberry · 18/01/2015 21:23

How exactly do you get diagnosed with the flu? When I had it (or assume I had it) I was bedbound and couldn't exactly rock up to the GPs so they could formally pronounce me. Nor would they have wanted me to I suspect...

LadyLuck10 · 18/01/2015 21:25

Yanbu to think it but people won't stop doing it.

dexter73 · 18/01/2015 21:26

I think they have to send a swab of your throat away for testing to definitely diagnose it.

Original poster
QueenBean · 18/01/2015 21:28

Yes, we spent yesterday afternoon at A&E - he was struggling to breathe and was asked to come in and given an appt with a "health care professional". Told he has flu and a secondary chest infection.

OP posts:
FluffyRedSocks · 18/01/2015 21:33

This really really annoys me.
My mum was diagnosed with flu by a drs home visit, the next day she was in a coma because her immune system had attacked her brain.

Flu must be awful if it has the same symptoms as brain damage gradually occurring.

Anyone who's sat up, or even really felt capable of moving by themselves I doubt has actually had the flu.

EdSheeran · 18/01/2015 22:00

"Anyone who's sat up, or even really felt capable of moving by themselves I doubt has actually had the flu."

This sort of myth being peddled is as irritating as people who claim to have the flu when they have the sniffles.

I had the flu, confirmed by swabs, I could certainly move and sat on the sofa etc.

Mintyy · 18/01/2015 22:03

Yanbu but its boring to have this thread again and again and again on Mumsnet!

FreudiansSlipper · 18/01/2015 22:11

I never really understand why people get so bothered by this

the competitiveness of pain/illness is something we nearly all do at some point

TheFallenMadonna · 18/01/2015 22:16

My friend was diagnosed with swine flu after a swab was taken, I think as part of a survey into how it was spreading, whereas the standard MN diagnostic criteria would have left her £50 better off (and misdiagnosed). She felt a bit crappy, but wasn't bedridden.

Mind you, at least this thread is not in response to someone posting about how ill they feel. Those always seem unduly harsh.

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 18/01/2015 22:19

This is a topic that does the rounds every week here.

Bloody hell it's repetitive.

fluffyraggies · 18/01/2015 22:21

Saying 'the flu' thing doesn't bother me too much. However ... saying 'migraine' when it's a just bad headache does!

Migraine is much much much worse than a god damn bad bloomin headache.

SorchaN · 19/01/2015 01:51

I was looking into this last week after been stuck in bed all of the previous week with some kind of virus. Was it just a cold? Was it flu? Who knows? The symptoms can be very similar in the first few days, although flu carries more risk of things going badly wrong thereafter. As far as I could tell, a cold seems to involve more sneezing and runny nose, whereas flu seems to involve more fever and coughing. But both kinds of virus can cause all these symptoms, and people can be laid pretty low with either. I don't see the point in turning it into a competition.

SorchaN · 19/01/2015 01:53

*after I'd been
grr

Observer78 · 19/01/2015 02:37

A lovely guy I knew died from complications caused by flu. Aged 33.
So I'd say - yeah, kind of stupid to claim you've life threatening illness when actually you have a cold.
Death is rare, but the illness itself is grim, by over-trivialising it perhaps it gets less response / medical attention etc when you really do have the flu.

WhatWouldJoanDo · 19/01/2015 02:38

I'm in Australia where people often say "I've got a flu" when they mean a cold, which I find even more annoying, for some reason.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 19/01/2015 02:51

YABU. Flu is like many other infections and can affect people differently. Some people will feel unwell but still function, others will end up in ICU.

Unless you've swabbed all these people and they're negative for influenza you are being a bit presumptuous to diagnose them based on a MN myth.

wobblyweebles · 19/01/2015 03:11

Ahh the competitive flu/migraine thread again.

wickedlazy · 19/01/2015 03:17

Yes one of my friends does this all the time. Most commonly as an excuse to back out of things when she can't be bothered. When she was pregnant she told me (over the phone) she was "loaded with the flu and can't make x". I asked her what her doctor had said. She said "er why would I have been to the doctor". I then pointed out how serious flu in pregnancy could be, and reminded her that when I was pregnant I had influenza b (was tested as it was around the time of swine flu, and they wanted to verify I didn't have the later) and spent 4 days and 3 nights in hospital on a drip. She sounded quite embarrassed and said "actually I think it's just a bad cold, er got to go, speak soon". Was so annoyed at her for that. If she'd really had the flu while pregnant (trying to run back and forth to toilet, with huge belly, while connected to a drip was horrible) she wouldn't have used it so casually as an excuse.

wickedlazy · 19/01/2015 03:27

*I meant if she wants to get out of something because she has slight cold, she exaggerates and tells people she has terrible flu. Don't think she's ever had the flu, when she does she'll probably react as if/tell people she has ebola ffs.

MokunMokun · 19/01/2015 03:30

Meh, the DC had the flu recently, it was confirmed with a nasal swab but they weren't that bad. They just had a few days of fever and a lot of coughing. They certainly weren't bedridden or unable to sit up. I guess they slept more than usual and were a bit subdued but there was still plenty of running around the house and jumping on the sofa.

fishinabarrell · 19/01/2015 09:56

I think a lot of people really don' know the tiredness and ache that comes with flu. My colleague had it last year and was shocked how ill she was, taking two weeks off work. She thought it was just like a cold but longer.

Full blown flu is horrible, you can get a milder form especially if you've had the jab for that strain you catch but far too many people get a sniffy nose and have flu or get nausea and have noro.

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