to not know the difference between flu and a cold!

[usernameishistory]

I spent the night not moving because I felt so ill, freezing cold, despite many (many!) layers, and needing a pee all night but feeling too ill to have one, despite it eventually really hurting by about 3am. I didn't sleep all night because I just felt too bad and freezing. Is this a cold?

Why can't I tell? Cold the night before, cold again tonight, feeling woozy and wobbly, cough, and pathethic!

All this you know if you have flu, wouldn't have to ask, million pounds on the lawn stuff is bollocks. Three quarters, that's THREE QUARTERS of people with flu have ZERO symptoms. I had swabbed for, diagnosed swine flu and felt a bit run down but carried on running, working etc. My Grandma died... from a common cold.

It doesn't matter what you have op. Treat the symptoms and I hope you recover swiftly.

I had swine flu (confirmed by a lab) and i did feel terrible but i was able to use a pen and scribble a will out! I had taken paracetamol, relenza and sucked an ice lolly and thought 'this is it, i will write a will' Then when i was 'better' i had to stay with my MIL for a week as i was wiped out. However i have had some terrible colds where i have had a high temp, achey body and basically slept for 2-3 days. I wouldnt have been able to work through them at all. They sometimes lead to a bad cough that lasts weeks.

Are you sure it's not a urine infection? They can be really nasty and if you desperately need to wee and it hurts when you do so I'd get that checked out.
Flu gives you fever, nausea, upset tummy, body aches all over as well as cold symptoms, it's a monumental effort to move and get of bed and you can't do anything, even watching TV is too much.

When I had flu, my muscles and skin ached , like i had a bad bruise but everywhere. I had a temp of almost 40, i couldn't get out of bed as felt so dizzy and sick. I had to take paracetamol to be able to get comfortable enough to sleep. I felt too ill to watch tv, I just lay in bed and looked at the ceiling for 5 days with no shower or anything. I didn't have a sore throat or runny nose. I could get out of bed when temperature came down after a week but I took another couple of weeks to fully recover and had to build up my strength gradually, going a walk would send me back to bed again.

You can have aches and pains and a temperature with a cold but dont think it's to the same extent.

Lots of bollocks on this thread.

Here's some actual science:

www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/

For me flu ( twice in my life) comes on suddenly . From feeling fine to dizzy, nauseous and very high temp ( usually 39deg plus)in about 4-6 hours. Colds have always come on more slowly for me over a day or two and I personally don't tend to get high temperatures with a cold (though I know some people do)

I would say the main difference would be onset.
A cold - start to feel a bit snuffly, then runny and sometimes a sore throat later. Then congestion.
Flu - a slight sore throat and then a matter of hours later, high fever.
I've had colds that have knocked me sideways and given me a fever. I had swine flu on the middle of the big epidemic and alternating paracetamol and ibuprofen did take the edge off the pain symptoms, but I was still ill. My mum said I kept trying to get up and was talking a lot of nonsense though at the time I would have said it wasn't that bad.
It was only after a week when the fever finally properly broke I realised how ill I'd actually been.

@FizzyIce YES! I’m in wk 3 now and only just starting to feel better, cough still there for all of us!! Yes like you said felt dreadful but defs not as bad as flu.

@Likethebattle sounds exactly like what I and Fizzy Ice have had!

Thank you to pp for the get well wishes. They were lovely to receive.

For those saying you couldn't post on here, I couldn't. I couldn't get up to wee, for about 12 hours, just couldn't move, froze under a mound of blankets, couldn't reach out to drink the water in a glass just out of reach, or take paracetamol, within reach! Just curled up freezing, and moaning a bit. I had felt fine all day, then it felt like my body was swollen (I know it wasn't!) and the sensation in it changed), I hurt all over.

to all those that have lost loved ones to it.

I get up feeling woozy and drained, a little bit achey still, but then later on start to get shiivers and go downhill again.

Thank you for the link to the NHS news article that 77% of us don't show symptoms,or only mild, despite having 'got' the flu (strains a,b or c).

Its funny that my thread was about BU for not knowing the difference, yet theres so much argument about the difference! It was 100% Im BU, but now maybe 60ish % idk, but I do now think its flu.

When I think back to that night, and how I'm still feelibg like this, like an all over body thing, rather than just in my head with congestion, makes me think it's flu, but at the end of the day I'm not sure it matters so long as I keep improving (and don't spread it).

Cigars yes that makes a lot of sense.

If you can make it out of bed its a cold. I had flu once. Was in bed for a week. Had to crawl to bsthroom to pee as too weak/dizzy to even stand. Horrendous. Thought i was dying. A bad cold can be pretty grim though. Hope you feel better soon

Are you reading the thread hair as I've discovered, from the research above, thats not true.

I do feel .a lot better than when I couldn't move from my bed for anything.

A pp raised a concern over uti, thankfully no, it was literally just because I couldn't leave the bed to pee even that it started being so painful. Peeing fine since.

I've had flu a few times in my life, it was utterly shit but not crippling.

I think everyone's tolerance is different. I have chronic joint pain though, so my day to day is sometimes enough to land people in bed and I did 2 hypermesis pregnancies with life carrying on regardless.

Absolute bollocks that you can't do this and that with flu. Flu and colds are different illnesses. They're not on a continuum. A bad cold can be incredibly debilitating and you can get flu mildly.

This bullshit about £50 notes and blah blah is just a meaningless cliche. We all experience illness differently.

Hands down, the most out of action I've been in due to injury/illness is a toss up between trapped nerve in my neck and kidney infection. I'd have grabbed the money on my doorstep any time though.

I hate this competitive flu crap!!!
if no one with flu could move a muscle then how does flu spread?

I have had flu a couple of times. I remember being absolutley fine, no sign of a cold or anything, sat down with a cup of tea and within 5 min I felt like id been hit by a truck.
i still had to pick the kids up from school (really really shouldnt have driven but needs must when you are a parent) got home went to bed and they woke me at 7pm as were hungry. I put a pizza in the oven and then laid done on the kitchen floor as it wiped me out. DH got home shortly after and thought I was dead!
I definitely had flu but I had to pick the kids up so had to push through it.

Flu affects people in different ways, some people have responsibilities that mean they have to fight through, some people have a better immune system.

I agree about different “levels” of flu.

I believe I have had flu twice in my life.

The first time I fitted all the things described - week in bed, husband got back from Tescos and found me collapsed on the floor as I went to the loo and couldn’t make it back, etc etc.

The second time though was much less bad. I thought I had a really awful cold. (In fact I posted on here entitled “WTF has happened to colds” to moan about the awfulness of this cold.) It was miserable and I felt really ill but it wasn’t like the time I had flu.

Then three weeks later I got all these patches of eczema on my body. I don’t get eczema. It is in my family but I have been fine since I was a baby. The only other time I have had eczema at all was pretty much identical matches. Three weeks after the “real” flu.

“Oooooh” I said feeling a bit silly.....

I agree that I’ve found it tends to come on differently-colds I get sneezy and a scratchy throat and gradually get worse, whereas flu hits out of nowhere. I had it a couple of years ago and literally walked to the dentist 10 mins away feeling fine and by the time I had my check up and walked back I was a mess. Collapsed shivering on the sofa and couldn’t move! I’ve started paying to get the vaccine since then

Yes, this is how it hit me. I was fine, had made efforts for a fancy meal and wine, after eating and having a large glass was still feeling fine. Then a took a sudden downturn, as in feeling ill, not coldy, but ill all over. Freezing cold, and wiped out, my throat was kinda scratchy feeling and half an hour later I was frozen in bed for 12 hours.

Normally if I'm cold in bed I'd get on some layers and boil the kettle for a hot water bottle, I thought about doing that and going for urgent wee (and possibly just weeing there or where there might be containers near enough by to wee into) for the next 12 hours, but didn't move! I don't think thats a cold.

I think it's a bit dramatic for the start of a cold. Unless I had underlying issues that I'm not aware of.

You probably feel so cold because you have a high temperature and need to bring it down. The best way to do this is to take paracetamol. The cheap generic ones from a supermarket work just as well as branded ones. You have to remember not to take them along side other medications containing more paracetamol though.

Yes, and when I felt well enough I took paracetamol, but even having the paracetamol within reach that night I couldn't even manage that (maybe you didnt rtft?).

Now I'm taking them each time I nosedive again.

I had the flu as a kid and i was so bad at one point i was hallucinating so you'd know if it was the flu you wouldn't even be capable of sitting up let alone looking at a screen posting on MN

Luca

Thats been disproved. Its apparently a nonsense, all of it. Did you rtft?

A high temp from anything wil make you hallucinate, but it doesn't mean that if you don't have a temp you don't have flu, or that if you can type you dont have flu, amongst all the other myths.

I am not well, at least make the effort to rtft.

Coronavirus is one of the viruses that causes the common cold, but Covid-19, SARS and MERs all have managed to kill thousands of people.

For people who are immunocompromised or sensitive to respiratory tract infections of all kinds of common viruses can be deadly. DS has asthma and has ended up in hospital on oxygen and steroids multiple times with 'a viral infection' that has had no effect on the rest of the family.

It is impossible to know what virus has caused an infection without testing, the flu is rarer than a cold (on average you get several colds a year but only get the flu once every few years) but that's about it.