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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:
fishinabarrell · 19/01/2015 09:59

I think the reason people get annoyed is because it implies somehow they are weaker perhaps because they've been so laid up or taken time off work, or that maybe they're faking? One reason my colleague may have thought 'bad cold' is because another one is always off with the slightest cold saying she has flu. She takes two days then comes back in acting all melodramatic and saying how she's fighting it and forcing herself to come in. In her case it's a cold, and she's always fine to go to the pub after work with it...

OnlyLovers · 19/01/2015 10:07

I used to be guilty of saying things like 'I've got a fluey cold' and then I had flu and it stopped me saying it!

Proper flu demands and deserves respect. I was on my back in bed for a week (certainly couldn't have got up to g and lie on the sofa). Lay there dreading when I needed the loo because I was scared I wouldn't make it the four steps across the landing and back. Thought at a couple of points that I'd never get better.

It's the aching joints and the constant feeling of having a temperature that were the worst, IMO.

notauniquename · 19/01/2015 11:47

Migraine is much much much worse than a god damn bad bloomin headache.
I get migraines, complete with the whole visual disturbance thing.
There are ranges of severity.
Usually, I carry on working. and find it an annoyance because the whole visual disturbance makes it hard for me to see my computer screen.
After they go and it's just a bad headache I'm happy enough to keep working. (it's probably better to keep working than to drive home when my eyes don't seem to be working properly.)
When I get home I generally just go to bed, and if its winter I find that the on coming car lights/brake light cause pain but that's about it really...

Other people can barely move, and need to go lay in a dark room.
I just get a little bit annoyed at having a headache and maybe a little snappy.

The same thing happens with flu, some people die from it, some don't... different severities doesn't mean that a person doesn't have it.

DoJo · 19/01/2015 11:54

Different infections affect different people in different ways. All of the medical professionals I know understand this, yet for some reason it is a source of real anger for people on here.

dexter73 · 19/01/2015 14:15

The Daily Mash agree with you!

Original poster
QueenBean · 19/01/2015 16:28

Dexter that link is brilliant!! Grin

OP posts:
LadyIsabellaWrotham · 19/01/2015 16:44

YABU, a) because if you haven't swabbed people you don't know what they've got (although if they're snotty it's almost certainly a cold and if they're immobile and hallucinating it's probably flu) b) because this thread has been done to death recently.

Can I say "my son was hospitalised with chicken pox - it's a really serious killer disease. So I know that when you say your spotty but active child has chickenpox you must be lying!"? No, that would be a ridiculous thing to say even though chickenpox is pretty much a single immutable virus (why you almost never get it twice). So why is it reasonable to say "I was appallingly ill with flu therefore anything less incapacitating isn't flu!" Especially since influenza has three types and thousands of subtypes.

I grant you however that some people do overstate a cold as flu, and it is legitimately annoying but not nearly annoying as people trotting out the fifty pound note test.

I'm another one who can work through migraines btw because they give me blind spots rather than pain.

EdSheeran · 19/01/2015 17:32

I love the competitiveness that these threads bring out in some people. Grin It makes people look really twatty when they're incorrect. You can have variants of (yes confirmed) flu.

maninawomansworld · 19/01/2015 17:42

YANBU.
I have had my share of bad colds in my lifetime but only ever had flu once.
I didn't leave my bedroom for about 6 days and didn't leave the house for almost 2 weeks. It was without doubt the worst I have ever felt in my life.

If you are not in bed feeling like shit, you have NOT got flu!

LadyIsabellaWrotham · 19/01/2015 17:54

Were you swabbed for all those "bad colds" miaww? Did you get a positive diagnosis of rhinovirus from a doctor? Were they all snotty?

Original poster
QueenBean · 19/01/2015 18:25

I'm not saying that those with any particular illness should be given more sympathy than another

But I am saying it's ridiculous to say that you have flu if it's a cold. Because it's not. It's just wrong and you're making it up for drama.

Agree that flu can take many forms. But a cold isn't flu.

OP posts:
Chatty987 · 19/01/2015 18:37

Yanbu. Flu is terrible. People dye from it. It's nothing like a cold. I wouldn't mind but nasty colds are horrible so no need to exaggerate in first place saying its flu.

wobblyweebles · 19/01/2015 20:09

I've had flu twice. First time I wanted to die. Second time I had (confirmed by swab) swine flu. I sat on the couch for a few days, ran a fever, coughed a lot but frankly nowhere near death. I've had far worse colds.

TheHorseHasBolted · 19/01/2015 20:33

I've never knowingly had flu, but my definition of it would be something involving a high temperature, body aches, needing to sleep most of the time and lasting at least a week. If someone said they had flu and hadn't had all those symptoms, my instinct would be not to take them very seriously.

Having said that, I remember reading during the swine flu outbreak that they tested a lot of schoolchildren in London to see if they had the antibody for it, and about 40% of the children who tested positive were not aware of having had flu. If swine flu can affect some people so mildly I suppose it makes sense that other forms of flu could too. But I don't think anyone would think they had flu if their symptoms were that mild.

DH pisses me off when he has a cold: he never claims to have flu, but he acts like having a cold is a major illness and will go to ridiculous lengths not to "give it to anybody" - refusing to go to close to people and sometimes we won't kiss me. This has even happened when I've already had the same cold before him but he didn't notice, because I don't go on and on about my colds all the time and apparently a noisily runny nose (I'm not allergic to anything) isn't a big enough clue.

OnlyLovers · 20/01/2015 09:46

That article is hilarious. 'Sweat fucks out of them'. Grin God, that brought back horrible flu memories.

MinesaBottle · 20/01/2015 22:34

I had horrendous flu a few years ago and my boss was not happy - she didn't believe me and thought I had a cold. I couldn't have made it to the bathroom never mind work! But this is what comes of people acting like a cold is the flu (and some people, ie that boss, being twats).

aurorablues · 20/01/2015 23:35

I have to be honest, id rather have the Flu (and secondary chest and ear infection that came after) that i suffered from 10 years ago than to have had this long, lingering seriously bad cold i had for 4 weeks and still don't feel right from 6 weeks later.

Sleepyfergus · 20/01/2015 23:47

Oh FFS, it's just a turn of phrase. Yes, prob highly unlikely that someone has flu and it's just a really debilitating and nasty, shitty cold but compared to the day to day sniffles someone gets, it feels like flu to them.

I just can't get worked up about it tbh!

OnlyLovers · 21/01/2015 09:38

But fergus, it's a turn of phrase that devalues the actual flu. Look at Minesa's experience.

FreudiansSlipper · 21/01/2015 14:32

Who are you or I to diagnose flu

Some people are laid in bed for a week or two others are not

It's the same with depression, OCD, anxiety attacks not everyone symptoms are the same so unless you are in a position to diagnose them why is it so necessary to claim they can't possibly have because ....

Crinkle77 · 21/01/2015 14:35

People do the same with tonsillitis and it irritates the hell out of me.

bumbleymummy · 21/01/2015 14:36

YABU You can have mild flu or even completely asymptomatic flu.

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