We’re all so ill

[Blueisthecolour1]

What is going on with the violent & never-ending illnesses this year. DS1 came home from school at the end of Nov with flu, sat under a blanket on the sofa for 10 days & then went back to school. Immediately upon his return DS2 (4) caught it & repeat with him for the full ghastly period. Then, last Sat, down I came with it - full-blown, face-exploding, sneezing, shivers, fever, nausea etc etc. Still feeling exhausted/congested. Wed this week just gone DS1 comes home from school coughing. Cue next two days coughing, shivering, vomiting & generally feeling wretched. Yesterday DH starts with the cough, shivers, aches. DS2 pale & lethargic this morning, not eating so awaiting the fresh hell of him about to get sick again.

I’m not sure how much more of this shit I can take. The house is in a terrible state, so untidy. I’m exhausted, we haven’t done tree/anything Christmas related because we’ve all been so so rough for the last month. We all had the flu jab this year, I know it’s not guaranteed to give complete protection but I was hoping it would take the edge off. Appreciate these illnesses may not have been flu but they sure felt like it in terms of symptoms/severity etc.

I’m so done. I’ve never known a winter like it for illness

Because whatever is out there is airborne and no amount of hand washing will help if all the windows are shut particularly so as it’s been so cold.

Well, exactly.

It's horrible for those affected (mainly those with school-aged DC) but it's hardly surprising.

More evidence that Covid damages lungs

twitter.com/jeffgilchrist/status/1604112218030833667?t=hflgSzOy2o7KOalsJq-xmw&s=19

I,m seeing more and more studies linking covid to T cell death and prolonged T-cell depletion.
Your T cells remember previous infections, they are like the soldier ants in a colony waiting to recognise infective agents and starting off the process of attacking and fighting the bugs. If you kill them off your body has no memory of a previous infection so it takes a while for the body to generate a response and the infection can take a hold.
Covid is killing off these soldiers and it's taking months for the immune system to recover. basically its leaving people immunocompromised after a covid infection.

Scarlet fever is caused by a bacteria not a virus. However it follows on from viruses like chicken pox (and presumably covid) as the virus weakens the immune system. Hope that helps. There is no personal benefit to getting ill repeatedly and viral and bacterial infections can have long term consequences. 8 hours waiting time in A&E atm and only properly ill children being accepted in to wait. Shortage of antibiotics. Lots of options for reducing the spread to something more manageable for our healthcare system but can see why a 2 week circuit breaker might make sense.

It’s crap isn’t it! Covid, Cold and other cold, continuously since beginning of October, every time we get over one thing within days something else starts, the last one is the virus with the coughing. DH just getting over it now, taken forever, now I feel just knackered and am hoping it’s just the fatigue of doing everything for months on end, not really feeling the Christmas spirit.

That's weird. Like most of the country, my junior school age DC didn't have any "restrictions" last year and managed to get several respiratory viruses and vomiting bugs etc as well as multiple covid infections. Things like strep A, flu, norovirus etc don't have any real lasting immunity so not really any year by year benefit to having them.

I dread Xmas. My kids are home educated so we have it much easier and thank gos. Friends who have kids at school have had vomiting bugs. Strep A! Some hospitalised. Flu. Colds. Covid.

those who have chemo have no chance. I have a disease which leaves me with no immune system so i try really hard to not go to places where I know kids are sick.

my home Ed community are also amazing at either not leaving their house when sick or letting me know. So I don’t go.

Strange that all these illnesses are arriving after the Covid and flu vaccines. Our family has had neither Covid nor flu vaccines, not even DD, and we are all fine!

It's not about lasting immunity to specific conditions, though.

In general, our immune systems suffered because we were all isolated for so long. Even when society was "open", people were encouraged to distance, use masks and constantly use anti-bac and hand gel. This will be worse for children who build up their immunities by being in school and being exposed to basic coughs and colds.

We now have winter which is bad for Strep A and flu (which is normal, these things do the rounds every few years) - and schools are germ-pits at the best of times - so add the two together and it's not surprising that these common illnesses are spreading like wildfire and hitting people more severely than normal.

Sorry to be nosy, but how long did it take your husband to get over the virus with the coughing? I feel like I’ve had it forever and no sign of improvement… :(

Absolutely. As other posters have said, there's quite a lot of research and the evidence base is growing to show that covid damages the immune system, and the more times you get it, the worse it is.

The immune system is not a muscle that needs constant working out - it's actually better for your body to avoid illness as much as possible. People seem to equate the immunity building that happens in very early life (age 3 and under) with adulthood and think we have to do the same thing.

This isn't correct. Schools have been open for the majority of the last two years, and we haven't had full on restrictions for quite some time.

Immunity debt is a myth. It's the repeated covid infections and lack of sensible mitigations - such as improving indoor air quality, ventilation and making sure the population wear good quality masks where appropriate - that are making us sicker than we've ever been.

I've had the flu vaccine every year and 6 covid vaccines and I'm also fine...

Same here, me and DS1 almost constantly ill for weeks. I'm so done with it. It's exhausting.

I’ve had a cough for 6 weeks now. Just as one was wearing off, boom! Another flu type virus hits me and I’m so sick of the painful chesty cough I feel like ripping out my bronchial tract.

I’ve now started taking my husbands zapain that were prescribed to him. A bit dangerous im sure but I need to fucking sleep. I work full time, I drive all day to clients in dangerous conditions and I have 4 kids, plus I study. So I cannot safely function on no sleep. I’m off sick at the moment and hoping a few good nights will see me through because I wasn’t recovering while spending weeks sitting up all night with a bloody hacking cough.

Sorry for the self pitying rant. I feel all your pain and hope everyone here recovers enough for a happy Christmas.

Can I also suggest you all take a multivitamin with minerals, and a tonic (like Metatone) over Christmas, to help you recover as much as possible before school starts again? It sounds as if none of you are really getting to recover properly before you encounter the next bug - kind of a two steps backwards then one and a half steps forward, so you never get back to full health.

I remember with ds2 - he went through a series of episodes of high temperature, headache, floppies, shivering, seeming to recover after each bout, and then a few days later, the same thing all over again. Vitamins, minerals and a tonic were what broke the cycle for him.

We're essentially starting one now or in the next few days, did you mean tagged onto this in January ie a full month off? Because if not then it's kind of redundant and if so, it's a terrible idea.

Nobody would believe it was only going to be a fortnight, because of previous experience of rolling lockdown announcements. Working parents wouldn't be in a position to stay at home and look after DC, especially in the absence of a furlough scheme, and so people would use cobbled together, ad hoc childcare arrangements instead which would just mean loads of contacts. There's not a lot of point closing the schools if there's not going to be a significant reduction in mixing.

You'd have to have some keyworker provision unless you wanted to paralyse the NHS even further, so we'd end up with the same scrum we got in January 2021. And if there's one thing that lockdown and the BH for the queen's funeral should've demonstrated, it's that when you close the schools, a lot of other things have to stop too because of how many people then need to do childcare, which has an impact on anyone needing the services of a worker who is also a parent.

I think that postcovid inflammation is still with a lot of us and is affecting our general health and resistance

I reckon it's caused by a mixture of:
Homes that are too cold
Undernourishment
Parents with no option but to send unwell DC into school because they are terrified of losing their jobs
The state of the NHS

It’s brutal! We’re on hand foot and mouth(x2) impetigo and strep throat between adults and kids. Wishing you a healthy Xmas 🤞

The cost of heating can't be helping, we know there are health implications when houses are too cold.

Stop having the vaccines. I have been ill for the entire last 2 winters, so went without flu and Covid vaccines this year. Not one cough/cold/sniffle to date. DH on the other hand had both of his, and has had 3 awful viruses on top of each other.

And I take a high dose vitamin C every day.

The lockdowns def messed up people's immune system. My dh caught covid several months ago, then caught a flu. So that is two fevers in a span of a few months (not terrible, but he usually does not have a fever!). We have 3 kids as well ranging from age 3-10 and my dh probably had a fever once every 2-3 years since knowing him....if that and this year 2 in one year. I am hoping I manage to avoid whatever him and the kids have come down with (not sure how I usually manage to avoid it, knock wood!!!!!!!).

Forgot to add, perhaps I manage to avoid it because I am always kissing my kids, sleep next to one of them and around them all the time....maybe it builds my immune system up? :)