Are winter bugs worse now, or is it just me?

[Proteinpudding]

Sorry I know this isn't much of an AIBU!

I've just gone back to work after 5 days off with a virus - cold type symptoms, but bad enough that I couldn't get out of bed for a few days. Ear ache/headache/sore throat, swollen glands, chills etc. I've always been susceptible to respiratory viruses more than most (eg if there's a cold going round the office I'll get it and take longer to get rid) but I don't have any significant health issues that would affect me particularly.

Logging my sickness on my timesheet and realised I had similar around this time last year, I had three separate periods of 4-5 days off last winter. In the preceding years I'd rarely had to take any time off sick at all, maybe a day with the worst of a cold, but never a week.

I had heard that cold type illnesses could be worse after people being in lockdowns, but has anyone else experienced this?

NB this is not a dig at anyone who has regular time off - we're all different - I'm just a little confused as I'm someone who has been lucky enough to rarely worry about being ill, and I now I feel like I'm taking time off quite regularly.

I'm glad you said this cause I was started to think I'd gone weak or something! Just had what I would call the worst cold of my life If it wasn't for the fact that I remember having one just as bad last year. 8 days of headaches, earaches, blocked everything and feeling absolutely shit.
Pre pandemic obviously I got colds and they weren't nice but I was never laid up with them like this.

Yes I’ve this horrific cold too! The worst cold I’ve ever had!
I think our immunity is just low from not mixing with people for so long during lockdowns etc.
Give it a few years I’m sure we will all be fine again.

Did you test for covid (not that you have to anymore - just I've had very similar and it was covid.

A lot of this years winter viruses are covid or flu. We’ve had both Flu A and B on our ward already. It’s circulating early as expected. On top of that there is just your usual viruses going around I think we’ve forgotten how many times people can get I’ll over winter, last year too was a normal mixing winter no restrictions and viruses were defo around as we were busy on the ward. Mind you that’s been all year round. Some bugs like RSV never went away in summer.

I’m luckily very rarely Ill and only one hit me last year horrid cough with it. Then covid got me finally this summer. Hoping I’ll escape most I hate being ill and whatever I catch floors me for a few days. Never a mild sniffle.

@ButterflyBiscuit yes, tested for covid each time as our workplace encourages us to, as we're in a busy office and work face to face with the public. Always negative (so at least that's something I'm not particularly susceptible to - it has been around the office a few times and I've been lucky so far)

@user1469032438 glad to know I'm not the only one! I feel daft ringing in work with what are ordinary cold symptoms - but they're just so much more severe. Sore throat used to just mean a bit hoarse at work, now its 'can only sip cup-a-soups for three days'. I'm aware I'm not as young as I was,but I was starting to worry that this is how things will be for me!

@Bookaholic73 I hope that's the case. I was still mixing a lot in lockdowns - my work took precautions but we were still physically in most of the time - but perhaps there were still fewer bugs going around in the general population. I do hope this is temporary.

Doesn't covid have the ability to weaken our immune systems long term? I would think this is maybe the cause rather than lockdowns which occurred quite some time ago now. I also had a terrible cold recently that I struggled to shrug off as I normally would. It definitely wasn't covid but I did have covid several months prior.

I'm the exact same, I seem to have the same level of immunity as my toddler and have always been the same. Hers may even be better than mine, in the summer I caught 2 sickness bugs in the space of 6 weeks, whereas she thankfully only had one of them. She starts nursery soon and I'm dreading all the bugs we'll both get! DP thankfully barely catches anything and it's short lived when he does.

I'm going to pay for the flu jab this year, and also pick up some echinacea supplements. Whether they work or not I don't know, but I have seen a lot of reviews from people saying they have less colds than usual over the winter when taking them, and those they do catch seem to be much milder than usual. Might be worth looking into?

@Shinyhappyperson22 I'm used to getting ill frequently, just used to it being very minor illness and not serious enough to require time off work or days in bed (something I guess I took for granted before) I can imagine it must be difficult to stay healthy while working on a ward, I hope you get through it ok this winter.

Im reasonably confident I haven't had covid, I've tested throughout (since tests were available to non symptomatic people) as well as having PCRS when they were required and have never tested positive. I have an annual flu jab too, which I'm particularly grateful for now as I don't think I could cope with flu as well!

I do feel a bit better knowing I'm not the only one, DH seems impervious to bugs (despite making less effort with his health than I do) and though he is kind about it, I was starting to feel like a bit of a wuss....

Yes, definitely worse these days. Before 2019 I had never had time of for a winter respiratory illness. Since 2020 I seem to have had them one after another, and they floor me every time.

I’ve had unusually really bad colds in September and October the last couple of years. Always brought home by the kids from school. I’ve had Covid twice too. All the kids I tutor and their parents are full of colds and Covid at the moment. I suspect a combination of poor immunity from lockdown plus I definitely think my lungs got buggered after Covid. I literally never used to get coughs but now I do.

Weirdly I seem to be the opposite. I used to get everything going but since DD2 has been in nursery I've barely got anything she's brought home. Tempting fate by saying this though, probably.

I'm also the opposite but think it's because now I mostly work from home so avoid office and Tube/bus germs. I've kept up hand washing when I get to the office and when I get home, anytime. I can see that some people's immunity levels may have gone down due to the lockdown periods.

Totally agree - I used to get one or less bout of flu/bad cold each winter, and then everything else I could see off with a couple of early nights.

Now, I get a cold and I'm floored for a week and then have a couple of weeks of feeling exhausted, and that seems to happen fairly regularly.

Just can't seem to get myself feeling tip top well to start with, so it's like being hit with another wave just when you're still scrabbling to get up.

Never had covid, so it's definitely the bugs and not some form of long covid that's doing this.

COVID jabbed?

🙄I’m covid jabbed and I’ve had one non covid illness since 2019….. . So there goes that theory eh?

Maybe it’s more likely due to everyone’s immune systems being different!

What theory? No one I know who avoided the jabs has been ill. No theory, all anecdotal. But I would bet everyone here who says they can no longer handle colds is jabbed.

@mavismorpoth I know someone who avoided covid jabs who has avoided colds. Oh wait, because they're dead. From covid. Chistmas 2020 at the age of 32.

Take your antivax crap elsewhere, what you spout isn't 'debate' it is downright dangerous.

I’m home today with a cold which has got worse since Monday night. I have a fever now which I never normally get and my little boy is the same.

I’m utterly wrung out.

People dying of COVID or of something else with a positive COVID test doesn't cancel out the fact the the jabs could well have compromised recipients' immune systems. While I don't have "proof" that this is actually happening it still could be the case. Where would that proof come from anyway? Who would conduct and put out such research, and even if they did who would publish it?

And recognising that the jabs cause harm is not an insult to anyone. They do, it's factual, in some cases, as all vaccines can and do in some cases.

I'm sorry you lost someone.

I went through a phase of this a few years back. Had 2-3 years of getting viruses that floored me like you describe - 4-5 days off work, barely able to function.

Could have been flu, but nobody around me got sick in the same way. And doctor didn't suggest it either.

Haven't had anything affect me like that since covid arrived (other than covid!).

I think it's just cycles - some bugs hit diff people harder at diff times.

i have a cold right now!

but - hope I'm not cursing myself - I used to get them much worse in my 20s. Now in 40s, had no colds for three year period from 2017-20, which was freaking unheard of for me.

regular Tube user.

may just be luck. My health was bad in my 20s but I maybe worked 60 hour weeks, that stopped mid 30s.

My husband got hit hard by a virus recently. He got tested by our doctor for Covid and flu and both came back negative, so it was just a winter cold. Whereas before he’d get one every year, he hadn’t had one for two years thanks to Covid shielding, so his immune system was weaker.

He has had Covid though, we both have. His was a lot worse than mine and he’d had two vaccines but no booster at that point. I had my booster, and the only thing that made me suspect I actually had Covid, rather than just a couple of days with a sore throat and a dull headache, was I noticed I couldn’t smell my perfume. His was more like a classic head cold. I give full credit to the vaccines + booster for that one.

Actually I haven’t so far caught anything since that bout of Covid even though we’ve stopped shielding, and normally I’d have had a summer or winter cold by now, especially considering as I’ve been in close proximity with people who have.

Oh, to me having a cold always means having a fever. I get annoyed when people say "it's just a cold".

I think they are, they had to mutate to survive. I recently had a cold with temperature of 38.5-39, diarrhea etc. Never had anything like this in my life, always just mild cold.

Funnily DH and I have just had this conversation. I never used to get bad colds and I've had flu only twice in 53yrs! In the last year DD and I have had 3 awful viruses, swollen glands, fever, the works. DD ended up with pneumonia after one bout. We tested negative for covid, although we've had covid too this year. Her school is struggling with staff shortages due to non covid sickness.